
Glass. 
Book- 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




IN THE CAPITOL GROUNDS, RICHMOND 



We Discover 

The 

Old Dominion 

By Louise Clo sser Hale 

Drawings by Walter Hale 




New Yo rk: Dodd, Mead 
& Company, Publishers, 1916 



^2 31 



Copyright, 1916, by 
HARPER & BROTHERS 

Copyright, 1916, by 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 



<iCT 31 1916 



©CI.A4454(Ji 



Contents 



C'lAFTER FAQB 

I IN WHICH I OUGHT TO TALK ABOUT THE OLD 

DOMINION— AND DON'T 1 

II IN WHICH WE START IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION, 

BUT EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON DELAY US 9 

III STARTING WITH TOBY BUT ENDING WITH BAT- 

TLEFIELDS 27 

IV I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND, MY AlARY- 

LAND AND THE OLD DOMINION AT LAST 54 

V IN WHICH A FINE OLD STORY IS EXPLODED 
BUT WE OFFER AS GOOD A ONE BY A DEAR 
OLD LADY 78 

VI TOO MUCH OF ME IN THIS, BUT THE TRUTH 
ABOUT OUR TOLL-GATE PICTURE. HISTORY 
TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 98 

VII OFFICER NOONAN ALL OVER THESE PAGES, 
AN UMBRELLA, THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, 
WICKED GYPSIES, AND A SHAMPOO . . .118 

VIII AND HERE WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS, 
THEN FOLD OUR TENTS AND STEAL INTO 
MUDDY, MOUNTAINOUS ADVENTURING . .147 

IX ALL ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE, WITH SOME 
ORDINARY TEARS, THEORIES, AND A WRECK, 
IF YOU PLEASE 170 

X AND NOW A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS, MEET- 
ING CHARMING BOYS AND UPSETTING TWO 
LADIES, WHICH IS NOT AS BAD AS IT SOUNDS 203 



CONTENTS 

paor 
XI SOMETHING BETTER THAN MY FATHER'S COUSIN 

LAURA'S STEREOPTICONS, AFTER THAT A BAD 

ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS— BUT READ 

ALONG 221 

XII CONTAINING A CHURCH, A DISMAL SWAMP, AND 
THE SMELL OF THE LOW TIDE WHICH ROLLED 
IN RELATIONS. ALSO GERMANS! . . . .249 

XIII THE FEMALE NUMBER ! WE LEAVE " SWEETIE " 

BUT ACQUIRE WILLIAMSBURG AND A NUMBER 
OF DATES. ALSO THE STORY OF TIMOROUS 
MARY CARY 280 

XIV JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! A LITTLE 

QUARREL WITH THE ILLUSTRATOR AND OUR 
BEST HOMAGE TO A FRENCH SOLDIER . . 302 

XV LISTEN TO THIS: A DAY'S PERFECT MOTORING, 
BUT THE DAY AFTER THAT— OH, MY WORD, 
WHAT A ROAD! WASHINGTON FOR THE 
JOURNEY'S END AND THE GREAT DISCOVERY 326 

XVI THIS IS THE END I PROMISE YOU. IF YOU ARE 
SORRY I AM GLAD, IF YOU ARE GLAD I AM 
SORRY— BUT I CAN'T BLAME YOU . . .352 



Illustrations 



IN THE CAPITOL GROUNDS, RICHMOND . . Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

THE COURT HOUSE AT SOMERVILLE, NEW JERSEY . 6 

ON THE RARITAN AT CLINTON 22 

THE OLD VALLEY INN ON THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY, 

NEAR YORK, PENNSYLVANIA 34 

GULP'S HILL, GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD ... 46 

ACROSS MASON AND DIXON'S LINE— CLAIRVAUX, 

NEAR EMMITSBURG, MARYLAND 58 

THE OLD MILL ON CARROLL CREEK, FREDERICK . 72 

THE TOLL HOUSE ON SOUTH MOUNTAIN, MARYLAND 86 

BURNSIDE'S BRIDGE, ANTIETAM 102. 

THE POTOMAC AT HARPER'S FERRY 114 

A RELIC OF ANTE-BELLUM DAYS— THE TAYLOR HOTEL 

AT WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA 128 

THE IVY-CLAD TOWER OF TRINITY CHURCH, STAUN- 
TON 142 

THE HOTEL AT HOT SPRINGS— WIDE-WINGED AND 

WARM IN COLOUR 15a 

THE GIANT HOSTELRY AT WHITE SULPHUR, DELI- 
CATELY SHADED IN A WOOD 174 

THE NATURAL BRIDGE 186 

GRANT'S HEADQUARTERS (PRINCE EDWARD HOTEL), 

FARiVIVILLE 198 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

!rHE ROAD TO THE EAST THROUGH NOTTOWAY 

COUNTY, VIRGINIA . 212 

THE EDGE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP 226 v 

SEA RAIDERS INTERNED— THE " PRINZ EITEL FRIED- 
RICH" AND "KRONPRINZ WILHELM " AT PORTS- 
MOUTH . i ... 240 

OLD ST. PAUL'S, NORFOLK 254 

WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS— THE WYTHE HOUSE 

ON PALACE GREEN, WILLIAMSBURG . . . .270 

THE RUINED TOWER AT JAMESTOWN . . . . .286 

BRUTON CHURCH, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER STREET, 

WILLIAilSBURG 298 

LEE'S HEADQUARTERS— SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT HOUSE 3 1 2 

THE DESERTED MILL ON OCCOQUAN CREEK, VIRGINIA 322 

THE WHITE HOUSE FROM THE LAWN, WASHINGTON . 336 

MONUMENT STREET, BALTIMORE 354 

THE TOWER OF HOLDER HALL, PRINCETON . . . 366 

MAP OF THE ROUTE * . . 1 



We Discover the Old Dominion 



' 1 

Map o/^ the jRout 
'WE BIS COVER 



OLD BOMINIO]^ 




JiltrcJcS 



L 






WE DISCOVER 
THE OLD DOMINION 

CHAPTER I 

In Which I Ought to Talk About the Old 
Dominion — and Don't 

Will you adventure? Will you take a chance? 
Will you fare forth and all that sort of thing? 
It was April and became May — ^that is the time 
for moving. Something makes you want to move 
— to root up your household things and be uncom- 
fortable. I wish we could all move in motors, 
but if we can't there are always the wagons, tired 
women on the front seats with the glass lamp in 
the lap — rocking chairs falling off the rear. But 
getting somewhere, getting something new, some- 
thing different. 

I shan't be arbitrary. I don't insist upon your 
moving. A woman said to me down South — it 
was down South we went — ^that there is no pleas- 
ure to her in a tree putting out its leaves in a 
city. But I say a tree is a tree, and goes through 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

the same lovely processes in a virgin forest or a 
backyard. Ergo, if you don't want to go to the 
Old Dominion yourself, look out upon your back- 
yard, and when you've nothing better to do read 
this book — but I beg of you don't buy it, get it at 
the library. I am so afraid you won't like it, and 
will wish you hadn't spent the money. 

" Do you think you will repeat? " This was 
from W . I introduce him as quickly as pos- 
sible. My mother once said when I took her on 
her first expensive taxi ride which was planned to 
please: " We'll do it and have it over with." 

He has got to be in it, but I shall have to treat 
him with more respect. It is his claim that I have 
not been sufficiently formal in writing of him, 
and he has been upheld by this in a number of let- 
ters that have come to me relative to earlier " dis- 
coveries." The letters were charming in every 
other way, but reproachful in their tone as to my 
treatment of a husband. And, while I believe he 
wrote them himself, since he feels so keenly about 
it I shall endeavour to handle him with care. I 
shall even call him the Illustrator now and then so 
that you won't think he was the chauffeur. Our 
chauffeur on this trip, well — later 

" Do you think you will repeat? " he said. And 
yet he did not say it — he wrote it. I was away — 
I was away for several weeks last season. And I 

-j-2-i- 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

am wondering now if I should not tell you why 
I left my roof -tree — and the roof -tree of twenty- 
seven other families. Since I so clearly reveal 
the Illustrator to you should I not tell The Truth 
about myself? I don't mind your knowing, hut I 
am afraid you will cry: "Mercy! if she has 
some other profession than writing she can't be 
much—" and will not even get me from the 
library. No, I shall not say yet why I was wi'itten 

to by W except that it had nothing to do 

with the residence for divorce. (I really don't see 
why women get divorces. It is so character build- 
ing to show just how long one can stick it out.) 

" Do you think you will repeat? " It seems im- 
possible to get any further than this phrase. It 
howls in and out of my ears like a cave of the 
winds. He was hoping very much that I would say 
I was sure I wouldn't repeat anything I had re- 
ferred to in our last book of travels. And while I 
have no doubt but that I will repeat I said of course 
not — by wire. 

We both wanted to go to the Old Dominion, but 
for different reasons. As I have admitted, the an- 
nual desire to move was coming on and as our 
apartment is quite comfortable it seemed better to 
transfer my activities to another sphere of useful- 
ness. As for W he wanted to go as he had 

heard that there were some adventuresome roads 

-+•3-}- 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

down there (adventuresome is polite for bad) and 
this would give him a chance to get a new car. 

As soon as he received my telegram he began 
looking about for an automobile. It is much pleas- 
anter to look about for a new car than, for instance, 
a new pair of shoes. In the case of shoes you go 
into a shop, sit an indefinite time meekly asking 
passing clerks (who continue passing) if they are 
busy, and when you are waited on get no enjoy- 
ment out of your prospective purchase beyond tell- 
ing the man that " it pinches right there." At 
length when you find a couple seemingly mates 
(that is, one foot not hurting more than the other) 
the clerk plants a mirror in your way and says 
" This is what we are selling." And you catch a 
glimpse of two mastodons at the lower end of your 
stockings and you wearily pay a sum for the humili- 
ating disclosure, saying aloud to yourself all the 
way home: " I prefer comfort to beauty." 

But when you look for motors, beautiful sleek 
creatures are driven to your house and a charming 
young man possessed of enormous enthusiasm, 
takes you out just for the pleasure of being with 
you. The Illustrator confused me in his endless 
driving about, for motoring was not new to him, 
and there were a number of automobiles he went 
out in that I was sure he had no thought of buying. 
It reminded me vaguely of the mourner in the 

-^ 4 -e- 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

funeral procession who didn't know the corpse but 
only went for the ride. I did not get at his real rea- 
son until he innocently revealed it in one of his daily 
letters (yes, daily) when he concluded, just before 
love and kisses: " Time for a car to come — Toby 
feels it and is getting eager. " 

And then I knew, knew that it was all to give 
Toby a pleasant little airing. It grows very dull 
for Toby when I go off on these trips of mine. I 
am the only one in the family who will cheerfully 
and with enthusiasm abandon all literary efforts or 
any occupation calculated to improve my mind, to 
go out in the park with him. He has a terrible way 
of watching me from the moment I get up in the 
morning until he has this trip. He is full of hope 
in the morning, although when night comes and he 
sees our evening clothes go on he knows there is no 
use flattening his ears or ingratiatingly beating his 
tail. He cannot even bring himself to go to the 
door. It is too much suffering. 

He watches me most keenly about noon, and 
since he has been with us for some months I under- 
stand a good deal that he says. At noon it's park 
or downtown for me — anybody can tell by the 
shoes. " My goodness, " says Toby, " she's puttin' 
on her downtown shoes. My goodness, ain't she 
goin' out in the park? Now I gotta go and stare at 
Walter. " 

-J- 5-J- 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

You notice he says Walter. We hardly knew 
what to let him call us. It would be wrong to 
give him the impression that we are his father and 
mother, for sooner or later some of his companions 
would tell him that we are not his real parents and 
that would hurt his feelings. On the other hand 
Mr. and Mrs. Hale would be too conventional. So 
as we call him by his first name we thought it only 
fair that he should call us by ours. 

It was Toby, I imagine, who cast the deciding 
vote for the type of roadster which took us to — and 
away from — the Old Dominion. He was very poli- 
tic on all of his rides. He had caught the lingo 
from others out on free automobile trips and would 
remark upon hopping into the car " How smoothly 
it runs, " or " It takes the hill well " or " I'd like 
Louise to see this. " So it was nothing that he said, 
but just the way he sat up in the little curved seat 
at the back with W and the good looking dem- 
onstrator in front that clinched the bargain. And 
more than this as the Illustrator sincerely wrote 
me: " There will be room for you as well as Toby. " 

I had to be convinced of it. In the distant city 
I took a woman friend v/ith me to an agency that 
we might rehearse sitting in this circular seat. She 
was very touched at being singled out for this hon- 
our, and I did not tell her I had chosen the widest 
friend I knew. The agent in the show room would 




THE COURT HOUSE AT SOMERVILLE. NEW JICRSEY 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

no doubt have preferred Toby, for my friend, in 
her zeal, entered the car with her umbrella carried 
horizontally across her arms. After this we could 
not greatly enjoy om'selves as we sat in the show 
window (although quite a number outside the show 
window enjoyed us) for the concentrated gaze of 
the salesman upon the umbrella lacerated panels 
robbed the scene of its festivity. 

" Do you know, " I said to her that night, "there 
are twenty-seven coats of paint laid on a car to 
make it that lovely? " 

" Oh, dear! " she sighed, " and I can only get on 
one " — which incident almost reveals The Truth 
about me. 

When I came home — [that throbbing getting 
back to New York. " Same address for the 
trunks, " asks the property man. " Same ad- 
dress, " we reply] — the car had been ordered and 

on the big table in W 's workroom lay the white 

rattly paper covered with lines that mean days of 
joy, broken by circles that offer nights of ease. 
Roads and towns, good and bad, all a gamble. Sun- 
shine and rain ahead of us like the Spring itself, 
with a wonderful thing to be found out — only I 
didn't know it then. 

I said something like this, making it as unimagi- 
native as possible so as not to embarrass the Illus- 
trator who is ever fearful that I may burst into 



ABOUT THE OLD DOMINION— AND 

tears when having a good time. Even so he de- 
tected a tremor in my voice and assumed the su- 
perior tone that immediately robs me of all emotion. 

" I wonder if you can define the Old Dominion, " 
he asked. 

" Certainly," I returned, covering my igno- 
rance by a flippant air. " It is a steamship line." 

I doubt if he knew himself, but he looked so wise 
that I grew very uneasy about this place we were 
going to and decided to consult my beloved public 
library. 

" Gracious," said Toby, following me to my 
room. " Not home five minutes and puttin' on her 
downtown shoes. " 



CHAPTER II 

In Which We Start in the Bight Direction, 
hut Easter Flowers at Easton Delay Us 

I DID not find out what states comprised the Old 
Dominion. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth it was 
called Virginia, but that meant a great tract of un- 
explored country of a new world claimed by her 
because no one was in possession of it except the 
Indians — who didn't count. However, as time 
went on it was, to us, not the amount of territory 
which made the Old Dominion a definite locality 
but the men and women who peopled it. When it 
became noised about that we were going South 
these districts resolved themselves into cordial 
provinces without state lines, full of the friends of 
friends whom we must be sure to hunt up and who 
would " show us a good time. " But I do not think 
that the Southerners would stop at " showing " a 
good time. 

This vicarious hospitality was interesting, for no 
one had urged us to surprise their friends when we 
went into New England, although some had sug- 
gested writing ahead to their Yankee acquaintances 

H-9+- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

with the idea of notifying them of our approaching 
raid, presumably that they might get away in good 
time. So this glad sureness that strangers would 
be welcomed at any moment by those living in the 
Old Dominion was, after all, the best definition of 
what comprised Queen Elizabeth's Virginia. And 
in my dictionary, which, like Samuel Johnson's, will 
be largely swayed by prejudice, I shall say: " The 
Old Dominion — a locality where a stranger, drop- 
ping in at meal hours, can eat his head off without 
occasioning surprise or resentment. " 

The Illustrator was anxious to get away after we 
had made this deduction, not that we would visit 
any one, for we couldn't visit and wi'ite of people, 
but it was pleasant feeling that we would be 
wanted, and he urged me to overcome the natural 
instinct to create clothes in the Spring and con- 
centrate on history. I grew very frightened when 
I heard of the necessity of dates again. I had made 
a great many mistakes in my last book and my pub- 
lishers had politely hoped I would be a little more 
authentic. 

I went gloomily down to a book store and told 
my troubles to an intelligent young man, who has 
all the histories of the world tamed, and he said he 
would send me up a very nice little volume called 
A Short History of the United States which I 
couid slip into a pocket. I don't know what kind 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

of a pocket he thinks I have. That evening my 
maid came staggering in with a huge package and 
I thought I had been given Washington Irving in 
calf. But it was only the Short History of the 
United States for my pocket. 

Even so we managed to carry it in a khaki laun- 
dry bag together with a mass of reading matter sent 
me by my aunt. My aunt is an F. F. V. and there- 
fore is not really my aunt but the kind that is a 
mother's bridesmaid. She had said, in answer to 
my expostulations, that I really couldn't escape a 
little history but she would try to limit her offerings 
to leaflets. As a consequence the S. H. of the U. S. 
was squashed down firmly on the " Radio-activity 
of Hot Springs, " " Some Presidents I Know," and 
" How Washington Makes Us Think of the 
Church." He did not make me think of the church 
even after reading it. 

There was another book I should have liked to 
have taken, found in a long forgotten corner when I 
was looking for Toby's rubber ball. It was Elsie 
Dinsmore — just one of the series — the others must 
have gone to the little nieces who were loving Elsie 
as I loved her. With the elasticity of the Old Do- 
minion I was, also, going into Elsie Dinsmore's 
country, going to that region of broad avenues and 
darkies singing happily and the gleaming " great 
house." I was going to experience at last what was 

-J- in- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

as common to Elsie as verses in the Bible. Some- 
thing of resentment came to me that I have had to 
wait so long for what Elsie knew at birth, and I 
resolved that I should find on my trip a great house, 
an avenue, a fliower garden, yes, even a black 
mammy better than had ever come into Elsie's ex- 
emplary life. With this mighty incentive I packed 
the baggage. 

We got away earlier than I had thought possible 

but a day later than W wished. I could not 

imagine why he was so keen about starting on the 
nineteenth of April until I remembered that Paul 
Revere had taken a little trip himself over a cen- 
tury ago, and though the resemblance would cease 

there W was anxious to ride " through every 

Middlesex village and farm " on the identical date. 

With this effort in view — rather, behind us — we 

started on the twentieth, W with an ulcerated 

tooth, I with my glasses broken, the new chauffeur 
with a new cap which blew off, and Toby with the 
shivers because he was washed for the occasion. 
Otherwise we were all right. We slipped through 
the park, going rapidly when there were no officers 
and slowly as though butter wouldn't melt in our 
mouths when we espied a bay horse. Toby un- 
muzzled and leashless hung out and leered at them. 
The day was pulsing with promises of blossom, 
equally pulsing was the Illustrator's tooth. 

-e-12-J- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

I started poetically. " The hyacinths are out! " 
I cried. 

" Unghuh, " replied the distracted man, glaring 
at the Zoo. " So are the buffalo. " 

At Fifty-eighth Street we meachingly passed the 
stern cop who scolds us so often. At Fifty-seventh 
I sighed for the fine chap who looks like Augustus 
Thomas, and who is there no longer. Where could 
he have gone — do policemen die ! At Forty-second 
Street was the one who used to laugh so much be- 
fore he was transferred from Broadway to this 
dread corner. He is controlled now and on his job 
every minute. A woman of the social world who is 
as good as she is beautiful passed with her red Chow 
dog on the front seat. The officers all saluted her. 
She is so kind to people and to dumb things — so 
awake to the pain of the world. A little wave of 
regret lapped at my heart that we were leaving 
these familiar scenes, but we went on thi'ough mean 
streets toward the Weehawken ferry. Mean 
streets! Poor old New York, I can say what I 
please of it and no one will write me a letter in its 
defense. 

When the ferry backed away from the city as 
though leaving royalty I was glad I was going. A 
strip of water is an absolute severing of ties. I 
was ready, after all, to go at loose ends for a space. 
Two years ago when we motored up the Hudson 

-<-13-e- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

for an extended trip the war was upon us, yet we 
could not believe but that it was for the moment. 
It was grim but passing, we felt. I do not know 
how near it will be to the end when this bad scrib- 
bling is set up nicely in print, but on the twentieth 
of April I could hear the hoarse voices of the big 
fellows who sell the five cent extras, and I was glad 
that for a while I should be separated from news 
hot from the cable. 

More than that I was not ashamed to be glad. I 
have found out much since this war began. I have 
found that to preserve the balance of life happiness 
must be somewhere. It is as vital to the world as 
sympathy and generous giving. Generous giving? 
This, too, had confused me. How had I a right to 
anything when a man died for lack of bandages? 
How could any of us buy the lovely things within 
the shops. I spoke of this to my French milliner — 
" a little French milliner." I said I could not buy 
her hats that year. 

" Bien, madame," she replied, " but what will I 
do? My bills come in from the wholesale houses — 
I must pay them. My models come from France — 
it needs the money — I must pay them quickly. 
Eight of my people are fighting in France, 
and I must send your money for my hats to 
them." 

I was delighted when she said this and I bought 
-f-14-J- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

a very pretty hat. But we agreed that all of us 
must do with a little less and give the difference 
away. So I have a small purse and when I want 
to go on the bus I take the subway and, saving five 
cents, put it in the purse for the wounded. Again, 
half the time when I want an ice cream soda I get a 
drink of water which is quite as satisfactory, put- 
ting ten cents in the purse " pour les blesses." But 
half the time I have the " chocolate-ice-cream- 
please " for what would the soda water man do, who 
is always a nice fellow in a white coat, if we all left 
him? 

" This," said W breaking in upon my 

thoughts after we had quitted the ferry house, " is 
Jersey Heights." 

I groped back in my mind and advanced the be- 
lief that the Jersey Heights were noted for some- 
thing. The chauffeur said, quite simply, that he 

had been born there, and W strove for fame 

by confessing that he used to ascend them in our 
car of twelve years ago, going up backwards for 
power. However, that was not the event of histori- 
cal interest which lurks in my mind, but it does not 
lurk at all in the S. H. of the U. S. I even gave 
the search a trial at the library, failing miserably 
for I can never take down a J-K-L volume with- 
out going on to read of my dear Lincoln, so I really 
won't know what happened on Jersey Heights 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

(if it was Jersey Heights) till my publishers tell 
me. 

We went on and on through Jersey, getting it- 
self ready for Spring. The fountains of the park 
were being cleaned and in one a collection of stone 
frogs stuck up on iron rods sent a thrill of satisfac- 
tion through me. To my mind the only good frog 
is a stone frog. I remember a night spent in the 
country (" Come out, dear, and have a fine sleep," 
they telephoned me) when the bull frogs in the lake 
were plying their suit at the top of their croaks. I 
remember how my affection for those kind people 
who had invited me out turned to violent hatred of 
them before the morn, and how I took the early 
train back to noisy New York and sank into sleep 
lulled by the hucksters cry and the sound of the 
hurdy-gurdy. But to be fair to the bull frogs I 
don't suppose they care for our love music either. 
They would probably be bored to death at La Bo- 
heme — even if the management gave them a box. 

We went by way of Newark and out of it by 
Clinton Avenue which Mr. Samuel Pepys would 
probably put down as " the finest avenue that ever 
I did see." It is largely given over now to cavorting 
jitneys. They were so varied in their destinations 
that I am sure one could go to any point if they 
would only start at Newark. Not that I am against 
the jitneys. I believe in those of modest means hav- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

ing a chance to use the most beautiful paths. Noth- 
ing rouses me to greater ire when I am in London 
than being refused admittance to the Hyde Park 
Drive because I do not possess a private vehicle. It 
is no treat to a rich man to enjoy the green things, 
and think how cute the little donkey shays would 
look backing into all the coroneted carriages. 

There is one objection to the jitneys in this local- 
ity : you have no excuse for not visiting your friends 
no matter how remote their suburb. " Don't you 
care a nickel's worth for me? " they ask over the 
'phone. And being untruthful you have to say that 
you do. Ah! if you had only replied as did Elsie 
Dinsmore when she gave up the fair: "I would 
rather stay at home than be deceitful." 

We met a moving wagon fulfilling the glad mis- 
sion which I write of so airily and refuse to enter- 
tain. A sour looking woman with a baby was sit- 
ting up in front, and on the wagon was a sign which 
read " Joy Rides at All Hours." She looked at me 
bitterly and I knew I was having the best of it and 
felt guilty. I longed to lean out and comfort her 
with an excerpt from Emerson! " Change is the 
mask that all continuance wears to keep us children 
harmlessly amused." But I knew if I did she would 
throw the baby at me. 

If Elizabeth had a better looking front to her 
hotel we would have stopped there for lunch. I 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

know I could not run a hotel successfully, but I 
could deceive enough people each day to keep from 
liquidation by fresh curtains, clean windows, and a 
few plants. This is much cheaper than the best 
meat and active indigestion would not set in until 
the guests were well off the premises. But the 
Elizabeth hotel keeper did not make this dishonest 
effort to attract. Therefore we went on, picking 
out nice bits of architecture as probable inns and 
finding them to be engine houses. One was in mis- 
sion style with a belfry, and a very good style, I 
should say, for if anything has a mission in life it is 
the fire department. 

There was something about the stucco and the 
red clay of the vicinity which brought California to 
me, and with it a memory of a fire engine house of 
a very small California town where the exigencies 
of my profession (the secret) once took me. 

I recall waking up in the middle of the night by 
loud denunciations on the part of a fireman who, it 
seems, had kept on sleeping when the call to arms 
smnmoned the others and had missed the excite- 
ment. He was very indignant and said " he was in 
it as much as anybody and they had a right to call 
him." The fire chief replied in language which 
could have caused spontaneous combustion that 
they had something better than wait for a fireman 
to attend a fire — that they had their DUTY. 

-J-18-J- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

" But j^ou might o' waited," the aggrieved 
one argued, " the fire was out when you got 
there." 

" Yes," said the chief sternly, " but that wasn't 
our fault." 

This should be the end to the story, but I am one 
of those who always want to know what happens 
after the end. And in case some of you enjoy this 
unfortunate curiosity also I will say that the chief 
concluded his speech with a stinging blow on the 
cheek of the late sleeper. I had heard a good deal 
of the honour of the West, quick on the trigger and 
so forth, and I shut my eyes. But nothing hap- 
pened. The struckee put his hand to his cheek and 
said politely, " Don't do anything you'll regret, 
Jake." After which they both took a chew off the 
same tobacco. 

This has nothing to do with the Old Dominion, I 
admit it [having been asked by the Illustrator if I 
could not confine myself within a thousand mile 
radius] and we will now go back to Plainfield. 
There we had luncheon. I don't remember what it 
was — excellent beef stew, I think, seasoned by wails 
from Toby, who for the first time in his recollection 
was led away from us and staked down in a very 
pleasant back yard. Poor little chap! What ter- 
ror there must be in a dog's heart when his people 
leave him. We know, a child knows, that we are to 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

meet again, but a dog knows nothing except that he 
has been abandoned. 

" I am very glad," says W at this point, 

peeping in upon my typist and me, " that you are 
admitting at last that Toby is a dog." Good heav- 
ens ! Don't you feel he is a West Highlander with 
wiry white hair, two black eyes and a black snout in 
a white face like a three of spades gone wrong? 

I went out and fed him the dinner he would not 
touch while we were away, and I knew I was bind- 
ing myself to certain slavery when I did it. I knew 
it was the New Dominion settling down upon 
me. One could have a master more base than a 
dog. 

The Greek bell boy, whom we addressed in Ital- 
ian to his distress, said the road was cut up by mo- 
tor trucks from a nearby factory. We always find 
that a hotel is right when they admit the road is bad, 
but wrong when it is good. Roads to a hotel man 
are as a poor version of the little girl who had a 
little curl right down in the middle of her forehead : 
when they are bad they are very, very bad, and when 
they are good they are fair. 

He was right about the trucks. Each carried 
huge stone weights giving them little outings up 
and down the road to which pleasure they were 
quite indifferent. How much better if they would 
carry for their tests: " School No. 11—2,048 lbs.," 

-e-20-«- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

for instance, or " 20 Fat Ladies of the Dorcas So- 
ciety — 6,000 lbs.— with clothes." 

We were just getting into open country when a 
kind Board of Trade, knowing our ignorance, told 
us on a large sign: " This is Bound Brook where 
Washington first unfurled the Stars and Stripes." 
That emptied us all out of the car, Toby to run in a 
meadow shouting gratefully " I like this Washing- 
ton," under the impression that the Commander 
was a field and the stars and stripes a daisy new to 
the States. 

I wonder just how greatly the Arms of the 
Washington family influenced the design of our 
flag. Some say it was pure coincidence, but it is 
hard to believe that a device continually used by 
George Washington (three stars at the top of the 
shield, horizontal stripes and bars below) did not 
make some impression upon the Continental Con- 
gress when this arrangement was decided upon for 
a national emblem. Yet the design appears to be 
a gradual development from several others that 
were used by the various colonies, and it was not 
until June 14, 1777, that the Continental Congress 
resolved: " That the flag of the United States be 
thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, that the 
union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, repre- 
senting a new constellation." 

And so Betsy Ross made it, as we all know, and 

H-21-!- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

while the B. B. B. of Trade says that it was first 
unfurled by Washington at Bound Brook, the 
Brandy wine Board of Trade would probably dis- 
pute this. Yet Washington must have been fairly 
well occupied at Brandywine fighting off Howe's 
superior numbers, and when night came withdraw- 
ing to Chester, " after burying their 1,000 dead." 
For in those strange old fashioned times the soldier 
received a grave. 

At all events we were glad to have the country- 
side placarded; glad, too, when the various towns 
extended to us a welcome as we motored on, in- 
stead of frightening us with Don'ts. It engenders 
a pleasant feeling of comradeship, this painted 
greeting, and who would run fast through a com- 
rade's domain if he asks you please not to? W 

accepted Somerville's hospitality, making a sketch 
of a remarkably fine square. I don't know how 
the man could do it with his face swelling " wis- 
ibly." And I hope you admire the picture for he 
made up a conundrum as he worked. " Why is my 
tooth like this square?" he asked. 

I eased his pain a little by giving it up immedi- 
ately. " Because it hurts to draw it," was the an- 
swer. 

Shortly after this came the White House, not as 
a reward for cleverness, as it is within any man's 
reach who follows the right road. It has become 

-?-22-?- 




r 










ox THE KARITAX AT C'LINT(»X 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

abbreviated through usage to White House, indeed 
it is now a town, but one can imagine years ago a 
great house gleaming white which was used as a 
landmark — so charmingly do names develop. But 
wouldn't it be droll if New York were called Mc- 
Kenna's Store! However, I would rather live at 
McKenna's Store than at Mabel, and that dread- 
ful appellation is holding down a few shanties out 
West. Clinton, without the originality of a Broad- 
way comedian as to name, led us on by its persistent 
sign posts. You weren't going to be able to escape 
Clinton, but it sweetly took you along a brooky way 
with spring calves much further advanced than the 
flowers, kicking up their heels at us. 

I went into the village store at Clinton and found 
some originality there in a raspy-voiced woman who 
was buying Easter plants for " The grave." Her 
novelty lay in alarming truthfulness, for in answer 
to the price put upon the flowers by a very gentle 
old couple she exclaimed " Tain't worth it." And 
while one may often feel that way about a grave 
(the grave in this case is a figure of sj^eech — ]Me- 
tonymy it is called — container for the thing con- 
tained) I have never heard one admit it so freely. 

" She means the plant," said the gentle old couple 
— they were quite indissoluble — when I spoke of 
this, and I thought it was very fine of them to stand 
up for her against my frivolities. Those who live 

-f-23-e- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

in small towns must have an endless amount of con- 
trol. They have got to keep friends with the raspy 
of voice. There is no escaping them, whereas in a 
big city we can shut them out of our lives as easily 
as we turn off a phonograph if the record is un- 
pleasing. 

" I hope you are getting on," calls the Illustrator 
at this point. I am really trying to, but it is hard 
when one has been bottled up in cities for a winter 
to avoid spending a great deal of time on what may 
be, to you, an unimportant matter. It seems wanton 
to pass a pussywillow without giving it a little at- 
tention, and I am always so sorry to go in and out 
of a town that has been a century growing with- 
out throwing it a good word. The creeping in of 
dusk alone quiets me. It was sunset as we ap- 
proached the New Jersey line and would shortly 
cross the Delaware into Pennsylvania. Men were 
going home from work, and just before we reached 
Phillipsburg, far up against the skyline we espied 
a lovely composition for the painter of modern life. 
It was a hand-car on a railway carrying home its 
load of human freight. The high embankment, the 
lonely figures — " What is it? " I asked. 

" The Angelus," W replied, and of course it 

was. 

Across the river lay Easton and we should have 
gone past it but the Huntington Hotel faced the 

-J- 24 -{- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

open square which was commanded by a monument. 
Around the shaft were thousands of flowering 
plants on sale for Easter, and the colour was so 
lovely that we wheeled the car to the door, and I 
went in — quaking — to register. 

Toby trotted along with me, for I would have no 
misunderstanding and be turned out in the middle 
of the night by the watchman. I would not speak 
of the dog for the clerk might be forced into say- 
ing they couldn't take him. But he was with me, 
and I will say this for Toby, while obstreperous of- 
ten, he never failed to approach a desk in any fash- 
ion but one of extreme modesty. And he tried very 
hard to look like a toy Japanese spaniel. 

We dined (I did, the Illustrator had mush) at an 
open window with a sale of crimson ramblers going 
on outside. A very large rose bush nodded in on 
us. Several young men asked the price of it but as 
it was four dollars their young ladies received, in- 
stead, a hyacinth or two. The meal would have 
been unalloyed save that we mistook a certain yip in 
the cogs of the elevator for a West Highland ter- 
rier. Yet when I went to our rooms I found him 
peacefully resting on one of our garments. And 
we secured quiet from him after that, no matter 
where we left him, by throwing down a coat to show 
that we would return. A little dog having but one 
coat himself believes a mortal equally limited. 

-i-25-J- 



EASTER FLOWERS AT EASTON 

The best part of motoring is walking about a 
strange town before we go to bed. There is mys- 
tery in the unknown street. A beautiful old church 
with fine windows lay behind the hotel and beyond 
that an elaborate mansion, made entirely from silk 
I understand, and suitable for the Pare Monceau of 
Paris. Across the way a chemist refused to tell me 
where to get dog biscuit at night, but said to call in 
the morning and he would " explicitly direct me." 

W claimed I had made a conquest " and 

worthy of it," but his compliment was but the 
emanation of a brain numb with the consciousness 
of pain, I fear. For, on his way to bed, he accosted 
the steward at the restaurant door. I knew he 
was asking for Philadelphia scrapple, but the stew- 
ard evinced alarm, as the tortured man was demand- 
ing for his breakfast " a little shrapnel." 



26 



CHAPTER III 

Starting with Toby but Ending with Battlefields 

The buds of the tree outside my window had burst 
their bonds and were looking in at me when I 
awoke. But it was a lady tree, I think, and as no 
other was so well advanced I took this as a compli- 
ment to a stranger. 

Following the fashion of the inquisitive leaves I 

peeped into W 's room and while I found him 

sleeping, his faithful hound was sitting up on the 
bed looking at me reproachfully. " His tooth is 
worse," he announced. I stared back. " We've 
had an awful time," and, as I continued unrespon- 
sive, " that ice pack you bought late last night — 
when you wouldn't take me out with you — leaked 
all over us." Although of a sweet disposition he 
was making it plain that the ice pack would not 
have leaked if I had taken him along. 

So the morning turned out to be a busy one. It 
strikes me that some women would be busy any- 
where. I have often talked of the day when I 
would rest, but no doubt I should work harder do- 
ing that than anything else. At least there is vari- 

-J-27-J- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

ety in my labours. Who would have thought that I 
should spend Good Friday in Easton, " Pa." heat- 
ing raisins over a candle and putting them on the 
Illustrator's tooth? 

This was the result of a visit to the dentist. His 

name was Able and, thus encouraged, W was 

induced to go to him. But no tortoise ever made a 
slower toilet than did he. Now and then he 
groaned. I reminded him of the courage of Paul 
Revere. " ' A cry of defiance and not of fear,' " he 
explained, following it up with a few set phrases 
about the ease with which we can bear other peo- 
ple's pain. 

It is more than a truth. How impossible it is to 
believe that others are suffering when the sun is 
shining. Easter flowers are in the square, and you 
haven't an ache. When I am ill myself I have 
thought trained nurses a very hard set, but I sup- 
pose they pretend sympathy as well as healthy crea- 
tures can. 

At all events the sufferer stuck to his raisins all 
day while I made little runs about the town and 
vast discoveries. There is one house in the square 
with stiff lace certains at the windows which 
brought to my mind " The Old Wives' Tale." By 
the side of it was the butcher's, where " A Big Veal 
Sale " was going on^ also " Baby Lamb " — like a 
fur shop. 

-j-28-f- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

It was on a Good Friday, a hundred years ago, 
that I received a baby lamb from an adoring man 
old enough to know better, who afterwards asked 
me to marry him. Young girls are more cruel than 
those battered into decency — don't tell me we grow 
hardened with the years. I accepted that man when 
I was sweet sixteen with the base idea of holding on 
to him until I got a better chance. I am glad to 
report that he finally sent me a note severing our 
relations while I was still enjoying his buggy rides. 
The lamb died, and he went away. It is quite like 
" The Old Wives' Tale." End of lamb. End of 
man. End of me ? Not yet. 

I ran back to W to ask if he thought getting 

him had been the punishment for my early wicked- 
ness. He was sitting by the candle. " Never again 
put a raisin in a pudding," he replied irrelevantly. 
" Go to church." 

The bells had been chiming " Rock of Ages," and 
I went into the fine old church which has an apse — 
it might be called — redecorated and lighted with a 
sort of Russian Ballet result. It rendered the cler- 
gj^man in sober black unimportant. It made the 
service incongruous. I kept wondering if the rev- 
erend gentleman ever wondered himself if he was 
being listened to, and then I grew nervous for fear 
he would point his finger at me crying out, " No, 
you are not hstening." I was relieved to slip away, 

-^29^- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

and I thought the flowers in the streets with every 
one buying them for gifts to others quite as beauti- 
ful a form of rehgious expression. Even the chem- 
ist who gave me back my money for the ice pack 
was making a little service all his own. I went back 
feeling that everything was all right. And sure 
enough it was, for the able one relieved the tooth, 
and as soon as I could drag the astonished terrier 
into the car we were on the way. " My goodness," 
said Toby, " ain't this our new house? " 

One thing more happened at Easton which I 
am obliged to chronicle, although the " suspense " 
is over when you know The Truth. It was all from 
that fearful attribute hotel men have of remember- 
ing people. " I don't associate you with a ma- 
chine," he said as I paid the bill, " I keep thinking 
of — of the theatre." And so the murder is out. 
He remembered the snow storm, and the try-out 
of a new play; the all night dress rehearsal, and 
the five o'clock coffee which he had ready for 
us when we dragged ourselves home through the 
drifts. For a hotel is home to a player even for a 
night. 

I would not speak of this other work as I do not 
need an engagement for next year so am making 
no appeal to you. But I find myself strongly linked 
with it as I travel through the country en auto. 
There is no similarity. It is by contrast that we 

-J- 30 -J- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

get true values. Conditions are better in hotels than 
they once were for the stroller, but there is still a 
vast difference between the attention paid a woman 
who clambers down from a hotel bus and asks for a 
rate, and the one who descends from a motor lead- 
ing a dog. 

And so — looking every man in the face — to the 
land of the Mennonites and the Dunkards. But 
there is ugly country before we get to the rich farm 
region of these sober people. There is, par ex- 
ample, the town of Nazareth. We thought Naz- 
areth from afar was Bethlehem, so bare was the 
landscape. But we found this to be only the shrink- 
ing of the herbage from the dust of the huge ce- 
ment works that keep the town prosperous. I sup- 
pose the citizens have to enjoy themselves no matter 
what is the unhappy name of their city, but a Naz- 
areth road house — really, that is a little too much. 
I should rather stay in a town named Mabel with 
nothing but JNIabel to live up to. 

We jogged over a bad cement road which spoke 
poorly of their industry, and came to Bethlehem. I 
was prepared for something ugly but stupendous. 
I found something ugly — and mean. This was 
hardly the fault of the town of gentle name. The 
engines of war are not found in their making along 
our route. Indeed, we saw nothing but a knitting 
works, and that is hardly one's idea of that grim 

-i-31-i~ 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

commodity which by a glance at the evening paper 
wrecks a speculator for life. 

It was the chauffeur — he observes almost every- 
thing along the road except the ruts — who re- 
marked that the streets were empty. They were 
and I can't imagine any pleasure in staying out to 
look at them. When we did attract a young man, 
holding his attention by nearly running over him, 
he was too indignant with fear and alcohol to give 

us any information. He had what W called 

" a hot cross bun," a possession you cannot eat, lose, 
destroy, or give away, and a poor investment for 
any young man's money. 

Love led our feet out of Bethlehem. We made 
the right turn for AUentown passing a piece of land 
which a large sign urged us to " Overlook for a 
Home," an unnecessary warning, and we bumped 
our way on. Many passed us bumping along more 
happily than were we, and leaving a cloud of dust 
behind. [Query: Why does* every one leave more 
dust than we do?] I am sure people who motor 
over these roads and know no others must think 
rattling about is a part of travelling. 

This is like a young lumberman who, many years 
ago, took a phonographic French course. He had 
never heard a phonograph and he had never heard 
French and he came out of the woods at the end 
of the Winter speaking the language with an accent 

-h 32 -e- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

which he took to be French but was in reality- 
phonograph. 

One can have all patience with bad roads in poor 
localities, but in Bethlehem, indeed, out of it and 
through the rich farming country of the Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch which lay ahead of us — well — even El- 
sie Dinsmore could not have been so racked with- 
out a protest. 

Up a lovely old street to the AUentown Hotel, 
out of it quickly, restrained from refreshment by a 
" Bar Closes on Good Friday from 6 to 8." No 
one seemed to know why these two hours were 
chosen. It must be for the reason that one thou- 
sand, nine hundred and sixteen years ago at this 
time darkness fell upon the land. 

Darkness came upon us quickly, great storm 
clouds rolled up from our direction. One could 
look far out over the countryside when the light- 
ning rent the clouds. Women scurried along the 
roadside flowers in their arms. To feel the awe of 
Holy Week one must travel through a wide coun- 
try. Even in a city we know only our own narrow 
circle to be awake to the significance of the hour, 
but on and on and on as we went was the same 
flood of feeling. 

The rain descended nor would we have had the 
night different, though we made our way slowly. 
At Kutzville we asked at an old stone inn if they 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

could give us something for supper. It was past 
the hour but they accommodated us. And while 
the food offered had little to recommend it, the 
motorist in America is so pleased to find the oblig- 
ing spirit that we had only gratitude for the effort. 

We went on through the rain and blackness. I 

was snug within. W had been frightened by 

the coming storm into rushing up the top before I 
was even wet. The last service of the week was 
over. The Passion was at an end. Women were 
coming out of the country churches along the way, 
the wind beating their wet garments about them. 
Our lights shone in their faces. One woman we 
came upon suddenly — her head was uncovered, her 
white face and brilliant eyes made a quick picture 
upon my brain. She was smiling mysteriously, she 
was exalted with the enormity of the hour. She was 
enjoying the reliving of the Passion. 

Strange thoughts came to me. Did " Mary the 
wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene " and 
Mary the Virgin find, besides their sorrow, an 
exquisite emotional stimulus in the death of the 
Good Man they all knew? This would not be 
wrong to me. It would not be dreadful to feel that 
religion could fill every corner of a woman's lonely 
heart. 

Out of the night rose a great munition factory, 
furnaces glowing like the pit. And again I asked 











■A 4- ; 



-/I 



THE OLD ^'ALL1•:Y TXX OX THE LTXCOLX HIGHWAY, 
XKAR YORK, PEXXSYLVAXIA 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

myself if this was the only way — this killing — ^to 
preserve a nation's honour. Yet in spite of the 
precepts of Him who had — it seemed — but this day 
died I now feel that it is. 

On the outskirts of Reading a big motor full of 
pretty girls dressed for a party offered to go out of 
their way to lead us to the new hotel. I thought it 
was very decent of them with their hair coming out 
of curl every minute to make this detour — decent, 
yes, and religious. 

" INIy goodness," said Toby, walking into marble 
halls. " Have we got another house? " 

There are many things about the Berkshire 
Hotel to recommend it, but I was most touched by 
the card on my desk. It was a pleasant word of 
welcome. It did not tell you of the things you must 
not do as in the old days. You were not warned 
that food carried from the table would be charged 
extra or that you must receive company in the par- 
lour. And stealing of towels was left to the good 
taste of the guest. Lacking prohibition of any sort 
we behaved ourselves extraordinarily well, and the 
only act I committed which could be questioned 
was the carrying off of the card itself. For which 
I hope The Berkshire will forgive me. 

I believe we are all growing honester as hotels are 
growing more courteous. The housekeepers in the 
linen room and the Pullman porters say that theft 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

is lessening each year, and it must be that we are 
developing a sense of public service — which is but 
the Golden Rule organised, enfranchised, with up 
and down town offices. 

I found myself very tremulous the next morning 
for we should be on the threshold of the Old Do- 
minion by nightfall and almost ready to begin this 
book. " Start the first chapter with Maryland and 
Virginia," my publishers had advised me, so I said 
I would. But you might as well want your son to 
be born at twelve years of age. This, I believe, is 
impossible, although to judge by the birth column 
one would think it apt to happen. " Mrs. John Ed- 
wards is the mother of a baby girl," the papers 
solemnly announce, as though Mrs. John Edwards 
might have brought into the world a young woman 
almost ready for the altar. 

It looked at one time as though Toby and I 
would not leave Reading at all. While they were 
putting on the luggage we ran in and out of a num- 
ber of charming streets, lined with old brick houses 
with the clean scrubbed stone steps that Reading's 
big sister, Philadelphia, has always advocated. 
Here and there was a wide gallery at the back of 
the house which gave more promise of the Old Do- 
minion than I am doing. We ran until we were lost 
and didn't remember the name of the hotel, and 
were ashamed to ask. 

-J-36-J- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

It was amusing in a way. What if we never 
found our way back and would have to begin life 
all over again ? I suppose that has entered the mind 
of every woman, but not many have the courage 
of one I knew. She was driving in an open Vic- 
toria in the crowded streets of Paris, and her hus- 
band who had been fairly cross with her for some 
twenty years was cross a little bit more. There was 
a block and his attention was held to his side of the 
way, so she stepped out on her side and he never got 
a trace of her again. How funny he must have felt 
when he looked around to find her gone. " Did you 
see my wife? " he would have to say to the cocher. 

W was asking that as we came back, but not 

feeling at all uneasy about me, although I have told 
him the story a number of times. His first words 
were " I was worried about the dog." But he was 
no more worried than Toby as he left his handsome 
new home. He looked at me questioningly out of 
his three of spades face. Why were we running 
away all the time! " It ain't debts, is it, Louise? " 

The Reading Automobile Club has put up a 
novel sign telling the motorist when he has reached 
the city limits and can speed up. It does more — it 
points the road to Lancaster and, admitting it is the 
State Highway, leaves it up to the state to apolo- 
gise. We had already grown nervous when a road 
is called a pike, and I am sure judging by its usual 

r<- 37 ■+- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

poor condition that the term " piker " comes 
directly from it. 

We were immediately among the farms of the 
Mennonites and the Dunkards. I took them to be 
Shakers at first from their black bonnets, and I was 
troubled to see the scandalous fashion that the 
women were driving about with the men. But 
these first sects marry, for the Dunkards are sim- 
ply German Baptists, and the Mennonites a relig- 
ious order of Protestant Dutch and German who, 
persecuted in Catholic countries, were invited here 
by the astute William Penn. They are generally 
admitted as the best citizens any state ever had, and 
that may be so, but they are certainly the worst road 
menders. I doubt if they care for anything beyond 
their church service and the limits of their farms, 
and they must be having a very uncomfortable time 
of it now for they are opposed to all war, oaths, and 
law suits. 

W got out to make a sketch of one of their 

huge barns, a barn which should not have been per- 
petuated as it was the only dirty one on the day's 
run and was a failure as a picture. A very kindly 
Protestant cat tried to make friends with Toby who 
chased her about as though he were a Catholic. In 
turn he was routed by a litter of the smallest pigs I 
have ever seen. To our reproaches he replied that 
Satan was within them, and I knew then why he 

-e-38-*- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

had sat up so late reading the Bible which was 
" Placed in This Room by the Gideons." Toby is 
like the old darky : he can read readin' but he can't 
read writin'. 

It was a very merry farmyard with white leg- 
horns flying clear over the barn which a young man, 
clipping a horse, said was nothing at all. I became 
as friendly as I can with any one who takes four 
minutes to answer a question. We discussed hens, 
I assuming an enormous knowledge. He said they 
didn't hatch out chickens any more, they bought 
them, and I said we bought ours too. 

" I don't see," said the Illustrator, his eraser in 
his mouth, " how you can be so dishonest." 

" Don't we buy all our chickens," I replied to 
him. " Do we hatch them on the fire escape? " 

" Dishonest," he hissed back. You can hiss dis- 
honest even better with an eraser in your mouth. 

One thing I did not ask the young man because 
it would take four minutes for him to say he didn't 
understand, four more for him to ask " What 
doors?" and four more for the reply "I didn't 
notice it yet." 

I had found that the response to my query all 
along the way was " I didn't notice it yet." My 
question was simple enough. I wanted to know 
why all the great stone houses on the farms or those 
in the neat little towns have two front doors. They 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

have, and they lead into the same house — for I 
looked. They have been that way for a century or 
more, and new ones are going up in the same fash- 
ion. There was less inclination to talk of this in the 
towns, gleaming with fresh paint, that ran along 
one street like a Dutch village edging a canal. The 
road very truly stood for the canal. Ephrata which 
called attention to itself miles in advance gave me 
nothing to hug to my heart save the name of a piano 
tuner: " I. List," and a hotel which was called The 
Cocalico. Think of a stranger with a " hot cross 
bun " trying to get back to The Cocalico. To be 

sure there was a pig market in Ephrata, but W 

said he would not stop and have me pretend to raise 
pigs. I explained to him as gently as would El- 
sie that I had to get at the people. 

" You can never get at these people. They've 
moved out here to keep you from getting at them. 
They keep their roads this way to discourage you." 

I felt, too, that it was futile, but I was permitted 
to stop at a lovely old tavern in a little place called 
Oregon where a village idler sat on the veranda, 
and village idlers are reputed for their loquacity. 
With one eye on the Illustrator I whispered to the 
man that my people came from this locality. 

"Did?" 

Yes, then they went to Indiana. 

"Did?" 

-J- 40-*- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

But they always talked of Pennsylvania. 

"Did?" 

Yet I could feel an idea working somewhere 
within his head. And I waited, and at last the 
thought was clothed in language and could go out 
into the world. 

" Why for did they go already? " 

I said they went to raise extensive vocabularies. 
They grew very well in Indiana. It was the home 
of them. I sold mine to the New York markets. 

" Did? " 

The new Brunswick Hotel in Lancaster soothed 
me a little as it had only one large door. This had 
that revolving arrangement in it to keep out 
draughts. (Amazing that I don't know what this 
type of door is called !) Toby got in one of the sec- 
tions by himself and we had to revolve him around 
a number of times like a squirrel in a cage before 
he would empty himself out. It created a good 
deal of amusement on the part of the guests of the 

hotel, and as we sat down to luncheon W asked 

if I didn't notice that we were always attracting at- 
tention. Don't tell me that women are conven- 
tional. Every man, I believe, comes into the world 
with a book of etiquette in his hand. 

Through being watched carefully by him, I was 
not able to ask the waiters why there were two 
doors to the houses, so I managed it only once in 

-+• 41 -»- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

Lancaster. The question was put to a young lady 
of whom I bought hair-nets at the jewelry counter 
of a shop. I explained that I was from New 
York, where we had but one front door for a 
great many families, and I thought it rather un- 
fair that one family should have more than its 
share. She didn't know, but she was neither a Dun- 
kard nor a Mennonite, and she rather intelligently 
said " It must be for some reason, as they had a pur- 
pose for everything." 

She looked at me wistfully as I waited for my 
change. 

"New York!" she mused. "You must find 
it very quiet here after so much excitement." I 
tried to explain to her as the bill swept along a 
copper wire to come back considerably reduced (so 
has the war raised the price of hair-nets) that the 
people I knew in New York formed such a little 
circle that we were almost like a country town. 
" But there must be so many calls to make," she 
persisted. 

I had forgotten that I had ever made calls. 
Among my heathen friends there is an understand- 
ing that we dine and go to dances but we do not 
call upon the hostess afterward. How well I re- 
member when I was a young girl going out on hot 
afternoons with my pasteboards in a little case, and 
how long I would have to wait in the parlours while 

-J-42-e- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

the unfortunate wretches dressed themselves. No 
one would say they were not at home in Indiana. 
Now I respond over the telephone to the boy down- 
stairs who has announced some intrepid acquaint- 
ance that I have just stepped out, and he delivers 
my message without the turn of a hair — or a wool. 

Once I went to Africa fortified by a single visit- 
ing card which was to tell Arabs where to send my 
purse if they found it. But in the course of events 
a dancing girl asked to write her address for me 
that I might come to see her house. I offered her 
my card on which she scribbled her name in Arabic 
which was of small use to me. But I tucked it 
away, and a few weeks after that, in Rome, I was 
granted an audience with the Holy Father. I ar- 
rived at the Vatican looking very unhappy in a 
black gown borrowed from a small thin lady's maid 
and a black veil over my head which I was forced 
to buy. At the last moment, just as I was about 
to be ushered into the presence of that kindly white- 
robed figure, one of the magnificent gentlemen up- 
holstered in red tapestry demanded my card — my 
only card. So the Pope has the address of the poor 
little dancing girl — about the last creature in the 
world who would have a chance to see — or care to 
see — her lazy twirling about. 

I forgot to say, but must in all honour, that a 
fine road led from Oregon into Lancaster. After 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

Lancaster there was a something that was better 
even than a fine road — although it was quite excel- 
lent — something that was painted every five hun- 
dred yards on telegraph poles. It gave me a great 
thrill at the first sight of it, and kept me palpitating 
for a long while. It was the insignia of the Lin- 
coln Highway : A band of red at the top, a broad 
area of white below with a big blue L on the sur- 
face, and another strip of blue at the bottom. At 
one turn was a sign post, just as calm as you please : 
*' New York 172 miles — San Francisco 3,217 miles." 

We kept thinking how proud Lincoln would be 
of this road even if it did not bear his name. It is 
fitting that it should be his. As a boy he knew the 
untrod ways of the actual wilderness. Grown to 
manhood he made a path through tracts of mental 
desolation, created beautiful spiritual clearings, and 
sowed with infinite wisdom the seeds of a great 
State. For him the labour of the pioneer, for us the 
harvest — and the long blazed trail across a country 
for which he gave his life. 

We were to leave this Lincoln Highway at Get- 
tysburg, but we were happy that it was to lead us 

to the mighty battlefield. W besought me to 

keep watch for the repeated emblem in the hope 
that I would not see the two doors in front, and 
flounce about. " Try not to see them," he urged. 

" Am I not to enlighten the public," I demanded, 
-«- 44 -«- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

" and isn't it awful to be vanquished by an extra 
door? " 

" I suppose," he hazarded, " they are Hke Sir 
Isaac Newton's doors — one for the big cat and one 
for the Httle one." 

The chauffeur who had the soothing manner that 
is very irritating, suggested that I close my eyes. I 
did this, but he kept looking around at me — with 
that too large interest he had in the world — and we 
very nearly hung a string of mules on the radiator. 
We did turn out in time, but the muleteer was most 
ungrateful. 

" Why don't you give me the road? " he roared. 

W roared back that we had given it to him. 

" Yes, but only half of it," grunted the greedy 
man. 

I kept my eyes open after that, for I may not be 
much use in a car but I have always noticed that 
something happens if I don't watch, and I should 
most certainly have missed a delightful stone house 
of 1697. It had hung out, on a fine new shingle, 
the name of Vallej'' Inn nicely flanked by pine trees, 
with further announcements on an oak tree that 
chicken dinners would be served. A gentleman in 
the back yard was calling the chickens. You could 
see that he was new to the business by the affection 
he was showing them. No one can possibly like 
cliickens who has spent much time in their com- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

pany. A very pretty daughter came out to greet 
us, and corroborated this inference by saying that 
they had just taken the inn, having come out from 
the city. With metropolitan vanity I thought she 
meant New York of course, but it was York, which 
lay a httle way ahead. 

She was a very attractive girl, and made the Il- 
lustrator wish he painted portraits of nice eyes and 
noses and mouths instead of forever presenting 
hard stone surfaces which increase in value as they 
grow older and older. Since I am not a young girl 
— not exactly — it is rather agreeable to dwell upon 
the advantage of being an admired old stone house. 
How nice if the world would say of a woman: 
" Isn't she charming — she's over two hundred years 
old," or " How beautifully she shows her age — look 
at the cracks in her face." I suppose I should say 
" her fa9ade," speaking architecturally. 

If wrinkles were a " consummation devoutly to 
be wished for " my bag of bottles would be much 
less troublesome. I should like to write about these 
various unguents that I acquired before leaving, 
and explain how I am supposed to smatter ( I think 
they call the process smattering) my face every 
night. The beauty expert told me I should have 
plenty of time while motoring, so it has a place as 
part of an automobile tour, and while I dare not 
now 1 hope to slip the process into a chapter some 

-h 46-J- 




GULP'S HILL, GETTYSBURG BATTLEFIELD 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

day when the Illustrator has gone to the ball 
game. 

I particularly want to talk about it here to make 
you forget that I haven't told you why the English 
settlers gave these towns — York and Lancaster — 
the names of the two great houses of the Red and 
White Rose. The settlers were funny. They came 
over here to escape the persecution of their own 
country, and they immediately named their new 
towns after the old ones, and began persecuting on 
their own hook. 

In York I asked a small boy, who was trying to 
sell me a two days' old Philadelphia paper with his 
thumb over the date, if York and Lancaster were 
still fighting, and he sneered "Lancaster — huh!" 
So I infer some sort of rivalry is still going on if 
war is only waged in print. The Susquehanna 
River flows between the two cities with a bridge 
over it a mile long, and I know nothing more cool- 
ing to hot blood than a body of water. Then, too, 
they always charge twenty-six cents to cross the 
bridge, and you have to hate a man pretty hard 
these days to pay twenty-six cents to go over and 
fight him. 

Visitors from the East who go to Gettysburg and 
return, generally stay in York over night or motor 
on to the new hotel in Lancaster. But we were to 
make a circular tour with as little retracing as pos- 

-»- 47 -*- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

sible, and country inns were to be our portion along 
with the fireproof caravansaries. So on we went 
to Gettysburg. 

It became a way of toll gates which the motor- 
ist never decries as it means good roads, except for 
the bother of having to stop. Some very nice girls 
wearing white Dunkard indoor caps, took our mite 

occasionally. Poor W always paid the toll 

very quickly, although he would have enjoyed talk- 
ing to them, as he feared I should ask about the 
doors. I did not want to ask young ladies about 
doors, but I was mad to find out, without asking, if 
these girls ever longed for the gay flower-encrusted 
hats that many of their companions wore. I can't 
say I found any longing in their eyes, just as I have 
never seen in a nun's face anything but supreme 
content. 

I did speak to one boy, who took our money, 
about this annoyance of stopping when you live in 
the vicinity and must pass over the road every day. 
He had deep wrinkles in his forehead either from 
thinking hard or trying hard to think. I asked 
him if the authorities did not arrange some way for 
the constant passerby to pay by the year and flash a 
ticket without going into neutral. He was very 
positive about it. He said that such an arrange- 
ment could not be made. At that a car rushed by, 
the driver swiftly displaying a coloured card. I was 

-?-48-f- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

severe with the boy — I said he was deceiving 
me. 

" No," said the wrinkled youth, " they pay by the 
month." 

Little chills of excitement began creeping over 
us as we neared Gettysburg. I was surprised to ex- 
perience this as historical events, even of our great 
battles, have never stirred me as do dramatic inci- 
dents of my own day. No doubt it is our present 
close relationship to war that gives us a rich appre- 
ciation of our own belligerent times. Now that 
our trip is over and I can look back upon it, I still 
feel the sensation of pride that was, till then, new 
to me ; and I hope that you will all go to these bat- 
tlefields of our fathers while you are quick with 
the anguish of bleeding nations. I would not have 
thought there could be so much emotion in a field 
of grain with a shaft of granite by the roadside. 

Our sensitiveness to the proximity of Gettysburg 
was not, however, great enough to carry us there 
direct. We mistook New Oxford for the little 
town of German name and were only dissuaded 
from disembarking our cargo by an honest hotel 
keeper. A little later the trunk, the dressing case 
of bottles (for smattering the wrinkles) the hat 
box, the khaki book-case, and the dog biscuits were 
being gallumped upstairs — gallumped is the only 
word for it — to very nice rooms with a bath that 

-f-49-e- 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

looked out upon the square. Before any one cor- 
rects me, the bath looks out upon the square and 
so do the rooms. 

The Illustrator came up after all the work was 
done to say he had been very busy engaging a guide 
for the next morning. I asked him what he had to 
do to find this man, and it seemed that the gentle- 
man had asked him before he got out of the car if 
he wanted a guide and he said that he did. This 
completed the operation, proving the despatch with 
which a man can dispose of important matters. I 
suppose getting a guide is really the first thing you 
do in Gettysburg. The clerk in the office congratu- 
lated us, and said it was wonderful our picking the 
best man in town. That he Hved in the hotel, had 
nothing to do with it, and since it turned out very 
well, I am sure that he was the best. 

Following the engaging of Mr. Sneed — that was 
his name the Illustrator said — ^he and Toby went 
out for a walk, the latter very martial and growl- 
ing all along the way. W purchased largely, 

sending home his small parcels after the elegant air 
of a man who will not carry a collar. But it was 
very pleasant to hear the little white bell boy pre- 
sent his packages with an invariable formula: 
" Missus, Mister sent you this." One was a pine- 
apple for my sore throat, and another, to my alarm, 
was an extra history. I regretted this as the S. H. 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

of the U. S. had sufficiently confused me already 
with Earlys, and Ewells, and Hills — both of earth 
and men. With a guide full of information, too, I 
knew I should never make head or tail of the great 
three-day fight. 

The lights were twinkling in the square before 

we went down to supper, and W came in as 

I was enjoying the gentle scene. He pointed to a 
building, quite near us, wonderfully near, and 
asked me if I knew who had slept in one of those 
upper chambers that were now dimly lighted. I 
was so afraid that it wasn't going to turn out to be 
Lincoln that I couldn't find any voice to ask, and 
as I couldn't have used my voice had it been where 
Lincoln slept the night before he made the Gettys- 
burg speech, I kept silent. The Illustrator, seeing 
my distress, became not certain that it was the 
Wills house, and suggested that we ask in the din- 
ing room. 

We went down. How stupidity takes the lump 
out of one's throat! We were late, and had most 
of the young men and women attendants to our- 
selves. The girls wore high white kid boots but 
not one of them knew of the famous house in their 
own square which had sheltered our " Brave 
Martyred Chief." They had not heard that it 
was the house of David Wills, who had first urged 
that Gettysburg be made a national cemetery. I 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

didn't expect any one to know it who lived as far 
away as New Oxford. I wasn't so sure of it myself 
before I bought the S. H. of the U. S., but these 
people make their living out of such home-made 
facts. 

One young waiter did offer a decent enough ex- 
cuse — he said he came from Dalmatia. This inter- 
ested the Illustrator who has always wanted to take 
me there, and the respect he feels for the traveller 
came into his eyes. He remarked that it was a long 
way off. 

" Thirty-seven miles," assented the wanderer. 

" I meant the Dalmatia of Europe," said W 

very coldly, not looking at me. 

The young man gathered up my stewed cherries. 
" I heard there was another one." 

I stood outside of the Wills house that evening 
and watched the soda-water fountain installed on 
the ground floor do a good " Easter-egg-sundae " 
business. The upper room is shown to visitors, but 
with a sore throat one is apt to be a little too emo- 
tional so I didn't go up. I wasn't annoyed with 
the waitresses in high kid boots any more. How 
Lincoln would have enjoyed that story on himself. 

" I must joke," he said to some of those about the 
Executive Mansion who in their supreme conceit 
remonstrated with him. " If I don't I shall go 
mad." 



ENDING WITH BATTLEFIELDS 

When we were back in our rooms W read 

the speech aloud while I sipped the pineapple juice 
and looked over to the Wills house. It is thought 
in the hour after he left the breakfast table, before 
rejoining his friends, he may have put those im- 
mortal lines into final form. But it makes one very 
happy to be told by those who have studied the sub- 
ject that he was probably a long time arranging 
in his orderly and rhythmical mind his almost exact 
text. It is right that it should be this way — that a 
great masterpiece should be turned out with the 
care that is given every work from the shop of an 
artist. Literature would be a cheap thing if it were 
easy. 



53 



CHAPTER IV 

/ Sing of Arms — Then Maryland, My Maryland 
and the Old Dominion at Last 

The three days' battling at Gettysburg is a very 
involved piece of mathematics, but it is no more 
intricate to work out than the blending of a full 
cup of coffee and a full cup of milk when there is 
no third cup at hand. 

I went down to breakfast intent upon the 
strategy of war and saying to myself, " Buford be- 
gan it and don't forget he was a Yankee." I 
thought if I could start right with the Generals I 
would not be surprised when I found that the 
North won the three days' struggle. 

The coffee order put everything out of my mind. 
We take hot milk in our coffee in spite of the ef- 
forts of the American kitchens to force us into us- 
ing only cream. 

" You want milk? " the waitress repeats after I 
have explained it all to her. 

" Yes, hot milk." 

"Hot?" 

" Please. I want to mix them together." 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

" Half and half," going toward the kitchen. 

Then she returns, as I have said, with a full cup 
of black coffee and a full cup of hot milk. I sup- 
pose there is some way that a juggler could throw 
the contents of both cups into the air, and catch 
half of each ingredient in the two cups as the flood 
descends. But I have never been good at tricks, 
and would probably become conscious in a public 
dining room with coffee and milk flying around in 
the air and all the guests getting under the tables. 
So I ask for a third cup, an empty one, and while 
she looks at me as though I had an unhappy passion 
for the collecting of stone china, the order is filled. 

W had breakfasted upstairs under the pre- 
tence that he would feed Toby his wheat cakes, but 
really that he might concentrate on the topographi- 
cal map of Gettysburg. When I entered he had a 
huge one spread over the counterpane and he was 
crying aloud: " Here is the hotel, and here am I 
facing Chambersburg Pike." 

I laughed then, but I have been more sympa- 
thetic within the last three hours. Immediately 
after breakfast today I announced violently that I 
was going to consult the maps and wi'ite of Gettys- 
burg, and no one was to ask me " What's for din- 
ner? " Since then I have called in to the Illustrator 
a number of times, the last announcement to the ef- 
fect that I can't get the thing straight unless I ob- 

-i- 55 •^- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

serve the map while standing on my head. He said 
if I would lie on the floor and hold the map horizon- 
tally above me I would arrive at the same result and 
not attract so much attention if any one dropped in. 
You see, he is always afraid of causing talk. 

Packing patient Mr. Sneed in with us we drove 
through the town toward this Pike of the Illustra- 
tor's discovery and halting on a beautiful govern- 
ment road placarded with Don'ts, called McPher- 
son's Ridge, our guide started in with a flow of sta- 
tistics that set our brains whirling. We could only 
limp along behind him, a few words to the rear, as 
one does when listening to a language foreign to 
him. You could see our poor lips, as he rolled off 
Generals, forming : " Yankee General — Confeder- 
ate General — Confederate General — no, no Yan- 
kee," until the history of the first day's battle was 
over. He then grasped the shallowness of our 
minds, for, after the pause which followed his really 
graphic description, a small voice emanating from 
me asked, " And where were you, Mr. Sneed? " He 
probably classed us after that as the hmnan docu- 
ment type and told us whatever we wished to know, 
not of history, but of his own boyhood recollections. 
How he was working on the railroad — which was 
quickly put out of commission — and how there had 
been a feeling in the air for days that something 
was going to happen. How Early's men had come 

■H-56-i- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

marching through the town and gone raiding on to 
York over the road we had used. Hill's men fol- 
lowed him, demanding clothing and food of the un- 
easy Burgess. How E well's men (they had been 
Stonewall Jackson's until that fine soldier was shot 
at Chancellorsville), who were advancing upon 
Harrisburg, were bewildered by a sudden call to 
return; and " Jeb " Stuart came on the third day 
beating his exhausted horses from Carlisle. How 
all of the roads that led like a spider's web into lit- 
tle Gettysburg were full of marching soldiers. 
They came on like a fog, as Richard Harding 
Davis said of the Germans. Yes, grey fog, but a 
ragged fog, footsore, desperate, ready to make 
what was almost their last stand. 

It is supposed that Lee in provoking the fight at 
Gettj^sburg, believed that a great defeat would in- 
duce the North to accept peace on the basis of 
Southern independence. He felt that the North 
was growing tired of the war, and he had beaten 
his opponents so often that he did not recognise 
they had failed in their attack from bad general- 
ship, not bad soldiery — all of this gleaned, of 
course, from the S. H. of the U. S. 

What he must also have failed to foresee was the 
use these same spider webs of roads could be put to. 
For in turn they became filled with the blue coats 
of the Yankees and they came from every point of 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

the compass, clouds and clouds and clouds of blue, 
ninety-five thousand of the North under General 
Meade, only seventy thousand of the Confederate 
army. And the loss at the end of the three days 
was equally disproportionate, for the toll was 
twenty thousand four hundred and fifty-one Con- 
federates killed, wounded, and captured, to twenty- 
three thousand and thirteen Federals. A number 
not to be held lightly even as the guns of Verdun 
belch their eternal fires. 

Mr. Sneed having finally plumbed our minds, 
directed the chauffeur over an old covered bridge 
which figured on that first day's fight, telling me a 
charming little story en route of the Confederate 
General Gordon. It was he who found on the 
ground after the battle the Federal General Bar- 
low, quite unattended by the First Aid of that day. 
He dismounted and asked if he could give the 
wounded man any help, but Barlow replied that he 
was done for and only wished some message could 
be sent his wife who was beyond the Yankee lines at 
Howard's Headquarters. And in some wonderful 
way Gordon managed a soldier with a flag of truce 
who brought her to the wounded man. The nice 
part of it is he didn't die. She got him to the farm 
house which still stands beyond the covered bridge, 
and there nursed him back to life. Years after he 
met General Gordon at just an ordinary party. 

"•t" Oo 'v* 




ACROSS MASON AX]) DIXOX'S LIXE— CLAIRVAUX, XEAR 
EM.MITSBURG, MARYLAXD 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

And the Confederate Veteran asked him if he was 
related to the General who had died at Gettysburg, 
and — well — I needn't go any further. 

I thought we were being driven across the bridge 
to see this house, but it was another residence which 
our guide picked out. " That," said he, addressing 

the chauffeur and W exclusively, " is Plank's 

house." 

The chauffeur who had been as quiet as a mouse 
as we swept over the battlefields bounced at him. 
" Eddie's house? " he asked. 

"What! Eddie Plank!" exclaimed the Illus- 
trator. 

I felt very out of it. But I questioned the Illus- 
trator and he told me to be sure and put in the book 
that General Plank commanded a brigade on the 
Union right during the fighting at Gulp's Hill. I 
did try to put it in the book, although I should have 
been warned by one of his pitifully obvious winks 
directed at Mr. Sneed, but my publishers upon re- 
ceiving the manuscript sent me a hurried note to 
the effect that Eddie Plank was star pitcher of the 
Philadelphia Athletics when they won the World 
Championship. So this paragraph is inserted at 
the very last moment, and I think a joke can go too 
far. 

We passed the cottage where Jennie Wade was 
killed by a stray bullet on the third day of the fight 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

for neither side fired upon the town as it sheltered 
their wounded. She has a monument in a cemetery 

nearby. " With the courage born of loyalty " 

the inscription reads. I am glad she has a monu- 
ment for women have few enough of them, but Jen- 
nie Wade was not out ministering to the wounded, 
or working for her country, or doing anything but 
walk past the open door of the house where she was 
visiting. And of the five hundred monuments 
erected at Gettysburg to commemorate the deeds 
of those intrepid days, I fear hers is the only one 
not earned by the honest labouring for whatever 
cause was theirs. 

There was a great to-do when she was killed. 
Mr. Sneed told me of it while the Illustrator, in- 
stead of listening to the story of the second 
day's battle as we stood on Gulp's Hill, was 
making a sketch of the hairpin corner. Mr. 
Sneed didn't mind being interrupted, he sim- 
ply went on as far as he could : " Now Longstreet 
— coming in from Chambersburg Pike on the night 
of July first — had been ordered to occupy Little 
Round Top. But he did not respect Lee's com- 
mands " 

" Mr. Sneed, have you ever noticed what a lot of 
disobeying there was? " 

And that is what amazes us both. The wars of 
the world are vast records of discrediting a superior 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

officer, of delaying when orders were given and of 
failing to seize the opportunity when it was pre- 
sented. And not every country had a Lincoln 
whose patient efforts were ceaseless to keep union 
among his Union Generals. No wonder he an- 
swered when some clamoured for the removal of 
Grant: " I can't spare this man — ^he fights." 

" The second day " our guide leaped in " ended 
after furious but unsuccessful assaults upon the 
flank of the Yankees, and to Gibbon, who had 
charge of the Union centre, Meade said, ' They'll 
strike at you tomorrow.' And all night — they 
stopped fighting at night then — Meade at his cabin 
planned the third day's battle, while Lee in his lit- 
tle shanty — they call 'em picturesque now but they 
must have been hot — drew up his splendid moves. 
But that was nothing, the folks say who lived 
around there, ' that the lights at Headquarters 
burned all through the three nights.' " 

" And could they sleep in the town, Mr. Sneed? " 

" Mighty little sleep for anybody. The air was 
full of smoke, and on the hills you could see lan- 
terns flashing signals, and all the time the wounded 
were being brought into the houses — Yanks and 
Rebs the same." 

" Did your people have some of them, ^Ir. 
Sneed?" 

" Sure. We had eight; one big fellow died, and 
-f- 61 -<- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

his father from Georgia came and took him home. 
All of 'em sent little presents back to my aunt. The 
doctors would go in and out the houses, and the 
men would cry ' Don't take off my arm,' but they 
just clapped the chloroform over their faces and 
went at it. They couldn't take any chance in those 
days. I guess there wasn't a bed in Gettysburg 
that didn't have a soldier in it. All of the towns- 
folk when they could rest, would sleep on the grass. 
You could see 'em in the yards thick." Then Mr. 
Sneed would get on his job again: " Now Sickles 
made a fine defence, and Slocum's second corps 

" and he would go on with his wondrous talk 

which so confused me. 

I know if I were to blindfold Mr. Sneed and, af- 
ter driving him about in a circle, suddenly remove 
the bandage from his eyes and force him to stare 
at the government road-bed he would say: " Here 
Pickett's and Heth's Divisions deployed " 

But he could well speak of the charge of Pickett 
and Heth on that third day. From one ridge, down 
into the soft curve of a pasture, up a steep hill fif- 
teen thousand Southern men made an effort to 
break the Union's centre stationed on the opposing 
ridge. What cannon fodder they were for those in 
blue from the height above them! They came on 
like a plain — they went down like the waves of 
troubled waters. Many were so terrific and persist- 

-?-62-f- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

ent in their charge that they rushed into the un- 
broken lines of the Northerners and were made 
prisoners. Hancock, who commanded the Federal 
forces at this point, said " I have never seen a more 
formidable attack." 

" That was about the end of the three days' 
struggle," concluded our guide as we rounded a 
turn on our way back, passing a little stone-encased 
well. " That's Spangler's Spring. Both the Blue 
and the Grey spent the night of July filling their 
canteens one by one from that run. All feeling 
seemed to die with sunset in those days." 

W replied that it was so in the present war, 

that he was last year in the trenches (I hope you 
have all read his book), and I, wishing to get into 
it, repeated what an English officer had told me: 
" Why should I dislike the Germans? I don't dis- 
like a pheasant, but it delights me to see it fall." 

I can't say that Mr. Sneed was very deeply inter- 
ested in anything that had to do with the present 
conflict. There was but one war to him, and one 
battle in it — Gettysburg. 

We drove about among the five hundred memo- 
rial shafts and the one thousand tablets which 
mark the battlefields along the ridges and in the 
plains. Some of the marbles were very badly exe- 
cuted. But the general effect was stupefying, and 
there was no scribbling of names upon the surfaces 

-J-63-J- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

as I have seen on many a foreign memorial. W 

was very much touched over his Minnesota regi- 
ment that lost eighty per cent of its men, and I 
found a tablet to the 27th Indiana whose colours 
never fell to the ground, though it cost many a good 
man. What a waste of soldiers by this drawing of 
the enemy's fire ! Today's warfare is more economic 
in the avoidance of their flags. 

So far as I know but one monument has been 
placed on the grounds by the Confederates, while 
one of General Lee will be shortly unveiled. " But 
they'll begin soon," said Mr. Sneed cheerily, 
" they're getting on their feet." 

One may observe that the name of Mr. Sneed has 
been frequently repeated in these few inadequate 
remarks anent a really great experience. But it is 
not employed in the script with the frequency that 
it was sounded upon my lips. This was because I 
was sure of the name, and I am so seldom sure. As 
a rule I address a strange companion at dinner with 
a sort of hurried introduction of all the vowels and 
as many of the consonants as I can get in, hoping 
in this way to make a sound something like the poor 
man's rightful appellation. It is the same with 
faces, especially, I am happy to say, with the faces 
of men. I can have a very good time with a face 
new to me and go away with every lineament 
sponged from my memory. I can remember them 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

better if they are scarred, or have a birth mark or a 
hare lip, and one very dehghtful creature who 
knows my weakness always takes a few steps when 
I enter a room as he has a distinguishing limp. 

I suppose this is the only way of my " getting 
back." I have spent my life explaining myself to 
people. And I do really think we should have less 
vanity about ourselves. Instead of saying " You 
don't know me?" with arch looks upon greeting 
some mystified acquaintance I think we should obli- 
gingly hoot out our names as we enter a drawing 
room. It is as bad over the telephone. Cousins 
whom we have not heard of for years, much less 
talked to, find us in the telephone book and expect 
us to guess who they are by the sound of their 
voices. 

It was the Illustrator who told me in the last 
chapter that the guide's name was Sneed, and I 
don't know why he waited until I had trimnphantly 
mouthed it a hundred times before he asked why I 
was calling a man Sneed when his name was 
Sheads. I ask any one — is that fair? He says, at 
this point, that I am giving more time to the sub- 
ject than is necessary but I feel if I explain this all 
carefully, you who visit Gettysburg in the future 
may, out of kindness to me, atone for my unhappy 
misunderstanding. 

But don't, I beg of you, ask how Toby behaved 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

on the battlefields, or how he chased a cotton tail 
rabbit in the Devil's Den, a procedure which was 
largely among the official Don'ts. It is not through 
shame but from fear of a summons that we wish 
the rabbit episode kept dark. A photographer sta- 
tions himself in this rocky cairn, and visiting parties 
have postal cards made of themselves standing 
where the dead were once piled thick. And I think 
that is just as bad taste as chasing a cotton tail. 

We left Gettysburg by the Emmitsburg Road, 
past the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield and on 
through fields of grain. I could not understand 
on that first day of battlefields, why these simple 
names that had to do with farm lands were so much 
more dramatic in their titles than the Valley of 
Death, the Bloody Angle or the Slaughter Pen 
— but I arrived at something like a conclusion 
later, which is pretty far for me to go. 

W asked me if I thought I could do justice 

to the scene, and the point is I haven't tried. It 
has been well done by the able ones. It was Lin- 
coln, with his exquisite modesty who said: 

" The world will little note, nor long remember 
what we say here, but it can never forget what they 
did here." 

A few miles along the Emmitsburg Road W 

shouted, " There it is," and he fell out the 
car to photograph a very inconsequential sign con- 

-e-66-e- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

sidering the trouble it has caused, marking the 
Mason and Dixon Line. I don't suppose either 
Mason or Dixon ever thought when they engineered 
this strip marking the division between the North 
and the South, that they should form a combination 
stronger than any dance team known to Broadway. 
But its yellow paint and black lettering stood for 
the soft warm things of life. It spoke of jasmine 
and mocking birds, turbaned slaves, old mahogany, 
low bows and ruffled shirt fronts. I might not find 
any of these old time sweetnesses while travelling in 
haphazard fashion through the country, but one 
may take away all this from the South and its choic- 
est possession remains. The first words I ever re- 
member an old coloured woman saying — and we 
had some of the old ones in Indiana — were " Man- 
ners, child, manners." And in this day when a great 
and efficient nation finds itself out of favour with 
the world from its lack of the graces, we cannot un- 
derestimate the power of courtesy. 

W began singing, " Maryland, My Mary- 
land," which is anybody's privilege who knows the 
tune, but was particularly stirring to liim as we 
were on our way to " Uncle Charlie's." When the 
Illustrator is in New England he belongs to his 
father's rock-ribbed race, and upon approaching 
the South he goes over to his mother's people. I 
would not say he chose this route that he might visit 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

the old homes of his kin, but he had talked a good 
deal about Emmitsburg and kept hoping I would 
have room to " get in it." 

One could put it in a pint cup, but it would take 
several pages to describe our satisfaction with our 
first sleepy old Southern town which looked exactly 
as I wanted it to look. With supreme confidence 
that some one would know at the hotel just where 

to find " Uncle Charlie's," W went up the 

raggedy old steps and came down shortly after- 
wards with a perfect Southern gentleman, soft ac- 
cent and all, who shook me warmly by the hand, 
although the Uncle Charlie, whom I had never seen, 
moved away from there thirty years ago. 

I could hardly keep the tears from my eyes for I 
felt that everything in the South was going to be 
exactly as I had expected, and strangely enough, 
it turned out to be so. Even the trees were further 
out than they were across the line, and a perfectly 
good buzzard flew over our heads to set all doubts 
at rest as to our locality. As the Illustrator re- 
marked, buzzards are the most exclusive of all 
Southerners. They never go beyond the Mason 
and Dixon Line, yet they begin promptly on the 
other side. 

We turned off the highway to go to " Uncle 
Charlie's," following an avenue of huge pear trees 
out for Easter that must have been centuries old. 

-e-68-i- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

It was good enough for the approach to Elsie Dins- 
more's house and I feared I was going to discover 
something better than hers right at the start. For- 
tunately, for I did not wish to find my quest so eas- 
ily, the house on the estate — San Marino it is called 
— had too many gables for Elsie who, I feel, lived 
in a mansion with a flatter roof. There were pic- 
turesque quarters for the house slaves, though, and 
a block where they were sold. There were daffodils 
growing in the lawn encircling the homestead, and 
there was a host much more cordial to strangers 
than Elsie Dinsmore's stern father would ever have 
been. 

W , who was now speaking with a strong 

Southern accent, had no fear of intruding, and the 
host accepted us as though strangers from New 
York motoring suddenly over his daffodils were do- 
ing him an honour when they awoke him from his 
afternoon nap. 

We let the nephew of Uncle Charlie mooch about 
by himself for he wanted to see where the old lake 
had been. He once told me that there had been a 
boat on the lake which ran by winding a clock, and 
he thought as a boy that it was the most wonderful 
mechanism in the world. I remember (this is ir- 
revelant so one may skip it) his expatiating upon 
this clock boat while a sweet little old seamstress 
was in the room trying to " make me style," as she 

-+• 69 -<- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

expresses it. And she joined into the conversation 
to a mild extent. She said she was no inventor — 
she had never had time — but she still believed that 
an automobile could be propelled without gasoline 
or electricity by using clock work. If you can 
make a boat go, she argued, why not an automo- 
bile? And, indeed, I don't know why not, except 
that it would be very embarrassing to run down at 
Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street when the 
green sign told you to " Go — go," because you had 
forgotten to wind the clock the night before. 

The Illustrator was courteous but did not en- 
courage her to abandon " making me style " for 
higher endeavours. And she may have put that 
down as professional jealousy for she herself had 
painted pictures in her younger days specialising, 
she told me, on flowers and cats. 

The gentle land owner of San Marino patted a 
beautiful collie which looked indulgently at Toby 
growling like distant thunder — a storm that never 
breaks — and told me of his longing as a boy to live 
at San Marino. How he had gone West, made 
" not a heap but a little money," enough to buy 
the place when Uncle Charlie wanted to go away, 
and how it was understood by all the girls and 
boys and grandchildren of Uncle Charlie that they 
were to come back for their honeymoons. He 
didn't have any children of his own but he had 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

adopted two little fellows who had grown up to be 
splendid men and, thus encouraged, he and his 
wife were out seeking for little girls. I was 
strongly tempted to tell him that I had adopted 
several children, just because my sister has one, 
and it speaks well for the truth pervading the at- 
mosphere about the dear gentleman that I couldn't 
choke out a baby. 

Was it not an agreeable entrance into the 
South! For the success of this man was em- 
blematic of the spirit of these states. The farm 
which would not prosper under the old method of 
cultivation was now richly producing, and the 
chalk quarries which the master of the old regime 
had been indifferent to were yielding automobiles, 
porcelain tubs, and other luxuries of this day. 

Stung by the social bee we could not stop visit- 
ing, but halted at the next estate on the flimsy ex- 
cuse of admiring the architecture. We had been 
assured of a welcome by his neighbour with that 
hospitality-once-removed which our friends in Xew 
York had offered us. We were rather surprised 
to find our friends so right. 

A black dog did not care for us but a white 
gentleman of evident discernment restrained him, 
and he loped over the fields to eat up a distant 
scare-crow. He was a plain Virginia hound and 
not the French police dog that fitted best into the 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

architecture of the house. One expects to plunge 
immediately into ante-bellum mansions of Greek 
design even on the fringes of the South, and this 
chateau of many gables like an old French picture 
of foui'teenth century Gothic piqued our interest. 

Our perfectly new host led us into the house and 
we sat down in a room where we were told a ghost 
spent many a quiet evening in company with the 
present family. The ghost is the refugee who 
came out at the time of the French Revolution, 
built the house after the fashion of his old manor 
near Clairvaux, named it after the town and lived 
to an extraordinarily old age, dropping dead about 
where I was sitting. 

" I really don't know why he should be dissatis- 
fied," said the gentleman whom we were outrage- 
ously visiting. " He had a very decent time of it. 
This is a great Catholic community and customs I 
went on about as they did in France. They stop 
work and say the Angelus around here still. 
You must have noticed the Catholic schools as 
you came along. There are bishops and nuns 
buried in the church-yard, and every darky of the 
vicinity believes that they sit up in their graves on 
All Souls' Day and chant the Miserere." 

" Do you see the ghost? " I asked, hoping he did 
and hoping he didn't. 

" No, our old black man sees him, but I can 
-H72-e- 




THK OLD MILL OX CARROLL CREEK, FREDERICK 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

often hear him sitting down and getting up — he 
creaks a bit. I have placed that chair for him — 
the one you're in." 

I got up — because it was time to get up — the 
Illustrator would have stayed forever, and I went 
out looking backwards at some darling old chairs 
whose legs sloped fore and aft, a model we found 
only in this neighbourhood. We walked toward 

the car after W had finished his sketch, trying 

not to step on the blue periwinkles (do peri- 
winkles sound like fish to any one else?) and in 
parting I went back to the ghost subject wonder- 
ing if the old IMarquis could be unhappy over the 
present owner's sympathies in the war. Strange 
how we cannot get away from this great fight! 
But our host was as French in his leanings as the 

gables of his house. W suggested that it 

might be the method of warfare that disturbed the 
old fellow. 

" That may be it," assented the Chatelain casu- 
ally. He was not tempestuous. He came from 
the newspaper world and, having created sensa- 
tions, knew their emptiness. " You saw Gettys- 
burg — that was the warfare of the French Revolu- 
tion — ' up to date ' they might have said. But this 
of today is a return to the Middle Ages. The 
liquid fire in present usage is the molten lead of 
that earlier period. The Arab at the front is 

-^73^- 



I SING OF AltMS— THEN MARYLAND 

right. Let them fight man to man, and it would 
soon be over." 

The Illustrator and I agreed when we were on 
our way that we would not stop anywhere else 
even if we were asked to supper. And we only did 
stop once to photograph a very good old house. 
We did not enter the gates, although with very 
cordial intention a cornetist somewhere within was 
blowing to us: " Whosoever will may come." 

A sort of panic crept over me. I remembered 
what we suffered at home when it seemed that my 
older sister might marry a young man who always 
brought his cornet when he came to call. He 
would play all Sunday evening to her accompani- 
ment, " Oh, Fair Dove, Oh, Fond Dove." My 
mother and I would walk up to the corner and pre- 
tend we didn't know where the noise came from 
when the neighbours protested. He was a very re- 
ligious young man, and, I believe, tooted his way 
into heaven some time ago. 

The only thing that sm-prised us about the day 
was the magnificence of the road, and this but 
added to our cup of happiness. Every one was en- 
joying it, including small cars with the top up 
although the sun was shining. We dared not look 
at them for fear of embarrassing the young cou- 
ples within. I besought our driver to give them 
the road, for the young chauffeurs made no effort 

-J- 74-?- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

to guide their vehicles save by the feet. There was 
no attempt at speed, they just jogged along as 
had their ancestors when wooing, and I am sure 
if they had occasion to stop they would instinc- 
tively cry " Whoa ! " 

There were barefooted children, log cabins, vio- 
lets at Thurmont, and " Miss Birdie Gilbert — 
Milhner " at Lewiston. There wasn't a hat in 
her window, however, and they must have all been 
on the heads of the young ladies in the small cars 
which were being run by the feet. I hope Miss 
Birdie did not go into the country on an Easter 
walk and see the angle at which her offspring were 
being worn. It would be enough to crush the soul 
of any millinery artist. 

And so, frivolously, we came to Frederick 
— the Frederick of clean streets, fine houses, a 
dashing stream, and Barbara Fritchie. I never 
thought in my young days (when, magnificently 
impersonating INIrs. Fritchie, I attacked Stone- 
wall Jackson so hard that one small boy burst into 
screams) that I should ever discredit the story of 
Barbara. I never thought when a girl that I 
should ever go to Frederick at all. 

What are the early dreams of youth made of? 
I cannot remember. Certainly wide travelling 
was not among my ambitions nor within my under- 
standing. I fear that I went to sleep and woke 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

up with the sound of applause in my ears, the ap- 
plause of a distant day. And while there hasn't 
been much of that in my life, I believe, after all, 
that the Business has been better than the Dream. 
With all the pain of existence I believe that every 
one will find more in the conflict than the con- 
quest. And the conflict will never desert you — 
not even in Frederick. 

The young clerk at the desk of the pleasant City 
Hotel was very dubious about giving us two rooms 
after he had read our names. I didn't know why 

until W went down to protest against the two 

walled up interiors which were apportioned us. The 
clerk was frank with the Illustrator. He said when 
married couples came to the hotel in the busy sea- 
son he could allow them but one room. 

" Yes, but if they are willing to pay more," 
queried W weakly. 

" No," from the young man who was an up- 
holder of Jeffersonian simplicity, " one is enough." 

As he was a very agreeable Frederickian, one 
need not put down his ideas on deportment as the 
old trick of the American hotel keeper in the small 
town. It is not unfamiliar to the strolling actor 
who takes his wife about with him. In many cases 
the same price is charged for two in one room as 
for two in two rooms. The eyes of the clerks 
gleam when they read the guilty man's admission 

-h76-t- 



I SING OF ARMS— THEN MARYLAND 

that he has a wife. They go into one room — or 
they sleep in the " Op'ry House." And I have 
known of tired husbands and wives after weeks of 
one night stands, approach the desk as individuals, 
register under separate names, and staring at each 
other as though strangers, secure a glad respite 
from a common tooth mug. 

W appreciated that there lay before him a 

tussle between the flesh and the spirit, with the 
good young clerk — curiously enough — on the side 
of the flesh. " I suppose," he said, glaring morally 
at the dispenser of keys, " you would like to have 
us register as did this secretive gentleman." 

He pointed to the line above our names. " Mr. 
Black and friend," was the simple admission. 

" They have come for dinner," cried the young 
man in a shocked panic — striking the bell for the 
boy. It was improper enough to have a married 
couple in two rooms, but the expounding of Brieux 
ethics at his hotel desk — Xo! " Shoot if you must 
this old grey head but " 

" Front! Show the gentleman into 41 and 42." 



77 



CHAPTER V 

In Which a Fine Old Story is Exploded hut We 
Offer as Good a One by a Dear Old Lady 

Some one will write me a letter to say Maryland 
is not South, that it never seceded from the Union, 
many of the natives did not believe in slavery, and 
most of the men fought for the North. But I say 
that there was a buzzard after the Mason and 
Dixon Line, a Southern accent at Emmitsburg, a 
hospitality at " Uncle Charlie's," and coloured 
waiters at Frederick. More than this I have de- 
layed long enough vn^iting of the Old Dominion, 
and it begins " right hyar." 

It began with me by a feeling of languor and a 
disinclination to leave my warm room (wrested 
from the disapproving clerk) which looked out 
upon a pretty little court. I could see into the 
clean kitchens opposite and watch the waiters pass- 
ing into the dining room swaying along as only 
blacks can sway, with their loaded trays high up 
on the palm of the right hand, swooping around 
each other and never colliding. I wondered how 
a left-handed waiter would get along in the pro- 

-e-78-e- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

cession. And I am very sorry that such a thing 
came into my head, for it is not important, and I 
have been looking for left-handed waiters ever 
since when I should be attending to exports and 
imports, or what is indigenous to the soil. 

Through the dining-room windows I could see 
Easter hyacinths upon the tables where were 
seated many guests. I fancied they were Fred- 
erickians who had given their maids a night off, a 
pleasant innovation from the old " go out in 
the pantry and get a bite if you're hungry " 
arrangement for Sunday supper. A hum of 
voices reached me. It had a very easy sound. 
There was none of the restraint of the Northern 
hotel which one finds so depressing. They were 
having a good time and weren't ashamed to show 
it. There is no muzzle to spontaneity in the South. 
I think they are more like the French than any 
other people. 

And the women are like Frenchwomen. One 
doubts if they have the executive ability of the 
Gallic woman, but then no other race posseses 
that. I can remember the impoverished Southern 
ladies who came up North to visit us when I was 
a little girl, and that oft-repeated phrase " Befo' 
the wah I nevah buttoned mah shoes." They 
probably didn't, but " the thing is " as my friend 
^I. W. P. says, they did button them when they 

-i-79-J- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

had to. With the denial which the " frivolous " 
Frenchwoman is showing now, the " frivolous " 
Southerner did without servants to button shoes — 
and shoes — and, as time went on, buttons. In the 
terrible days of reconstruction when a Lincoln 
was so needed, they continued to permit them- 
selves no luxuries beyond the luxury of talking of 
the past. Even to their own undoing they held to 
a fierce partisanship which rendered a meal a mere 
fashion to be done away with like an extra flounce 
on a gown. 

When I was about ten we had a young teacher 
in the ward schools who came up from the South. 
That was quite a while after the war, but the feel- 
ing was still intense. It was Gertie Mossier (of 
curly hair which I no longer envy), who threw a 
note into my lap apprising me that " teacher was 
a Rebel." Hot with the bitterness of which I 
knew nothing but whose wings were still beating 
in the air, I wrote back that if a Rebel, I hated 
her. And this, possibly through the treachery of 
Gertie Mossier, reached teacher's ears. 

She had me up after the others had gone to ask 
me if had wi'itten thus rudely of an instructress. 
I had not developed my gentle art of lying to its 
present perfection and I admitted the uncompli- 
mentary things, instinctively sure if it came to an 
issue that I would be upheld by the community. 

-?-80-e- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

I recall the fine flush that reddened her sallow 
skin. I could see the colour in her scalp through 
her thin blond hair. 

" Yes, I am a Rebel," she replied, not to me but 
looking far over the desks of the ugly school room, 
" and I'm proud I am a Rebel. I wouldn't be this 
scum '' 

She pressed her lips together and did not con- 
tinue, but she did not retract her dangerous cry 
nor ask me not to repeat it. I don't know how I got 
out of the room. With the instinct that assured 
me I would be upheld in hating her, I knew, too, 
that teacher's job was in the hollow of my hand. 
For some reason I never told any one — this is the 
first time I have ever spoken of it — so you see the 
confidence I have in the gentle reader. She used 
to watch me curiously, wondering, no doubt, when 
I would speak. She was pretty brave, wasn't she, 
for it wasn't easy for a girl to " speak out " with 
starvation staring her in the face. 

Of course, if she had gone to my dear Lincoln 
— or had him to go to — well, that's finished! 
Among my aunt's leaflets which were in the travel- 
ling khaki laundry bookcase was a little story of 
one of her kin, Miss Ann Elizabeth Summers, who 
was probably called Miss Ann Elizabeth. She 
had left Virginia on a visit before the state seceded, 
and as martial law was declared she found herself 

-h 81 -i- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

in Washington without funds or home. She grew 
desperate, and was advised by a friend to apply to 
the Treasury, " for they were hiring women until 
the trouble blew over." 

She was not encouraged when she made her ap- 
plication, the man in charge of appointments, un- 
sympathetic to Southerners, telling her in jest that 
she would have to see the President for such an 
important position. She took him at his word and 
waited at the White House next day from eleven 
in the morning until the sun was setting. And 
when she was ushered into his presence the best 
she had to say for herself was : " Mr. Lincoln, you 
may not want to talk with me for I am a Rebel 
from Virginia and cannot get home — but I need 
work." 

And after a little while the President sent Ann 
Elizabeth off with a note which read : 

" Secretary of Treasury, 

Please give Miss A. E. Summers a position in 
your Department. 

A. Lincoln."" 

As he handed it to her he said : " Miss Sum- 
mers, this is as much as I have done for any one." 

And, do you know, she kept the job. She kept 
it for thirty-five years and retired on a pension. 

-f-82-i- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

And I don't know whether the moral is to wait, or, 
in distress, to pray for a Lincoln, or just to be a 
Southern woman. 

I have wandered far afield again, but the roads 
in Maryland are so good that it is no trouble at all 
to run back from Washington to Frederick. And 
Miss Ann Elizabeth hasn't changed much from the 
women having supper at the City Hotel. 

Indeed, I became very mid-Victorian watching 
the waiters, and trying to be annoyed because 

W and Toby (who was out attacking iron 

dogs on elegant steps) did not return. I had no 
doubt but that we were going into the Old Do- 
minion after the most topsy-turvy fashion. We 
should have begun at Jamestown where the first 
English settlers endured, and worked our way 
through the earlier battles of the Civil War to Get- 
tysburg. The Illustrator had not planned it that 
way, doubtless in his anxiety to reach " Uncle 
Charlie's," but ostensibly to let me see the Virginia 
mountains in the first flush of Spring. Perhaps it 
is just as well to progress backward slowly (if you 
understand me) . I was already fitting myself into 

the mid- Victorian period with W in a nice 

black stock, but I could not jump him so quickly 
into the long curly locks of the Jamestown 
regime. 

It was all very sweetly old-fashioned this Easter 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

night, and old songs like " Nita, Juanita," came into 
my mind, and " Genevieve, Sweet Genevieve," 
which my mother used to sing. I remember her very 
softly picking them out on the piano at the old 
Palmer House in Chicago, when we went there to 
see the world, and my looking about hoping that 
some one was admiring us. I touched the pale 
blue satin furniture with awe, and heard stories of 
the real silver dollars in the floor of that part of 
the building where low men drank liquor. We 
had been out on a shopping expedition that morn- 
ing and she had looked at plaid cloth for my new 
pelisse (it was a revival of the pelisse I want one 
to know). She could not decide for the cost was 
terrifying to her, and she finally said with that as- 
sumption of ease which deceives no one: 

" I fear it is too dark for my little girl." 

Then the city clerk exclaimed aloud, but en- 
deavoured to conceal his exclamation, uttering: 
" Is it possible that this little girl is not your sister, 
ma am? 

" I think I'll take that goods," replied my pretty 
mother. 

Telling these things is the best description I can 
give of Frederick — which is no description at all — 
but the sensation continued throughout the next 
busy morning. The day began with a large grey 
cat jumping on Toby in the most inhospitable 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

fashion as we passed through the lobby to go dis- 
covering. Several old ladies who were in the of- 
fice — refined village loungers — gathered up their 
skirts and screamed, while the coloured bell boys 
enjoying themselves to the limit, made tardy ef- 
forts to remove her claws from Toby's inviting 
long hair. 

He was very much astonished, for he assured me 
that he had not invited the attack, but he had prob- 
ably grown a little too cocky from his success with 
the iron dogs of the night before. He trotted along 
with us when we gained free air, saying, every now 
and then, " Wasn't doin' no harm, Louise," having 
already soaked up a negro accent. One may have 
noticed a certain inelegance in our aristocratic ter- 
rier's speech even before he embraced this new dia- 
lect. It comes, we think, from his devotion to the 
funny pictures of Briggs, Fontaine Fox, Out- 
cault and such artists as have introduced dear, 
talking dogs to the public. I know if he were to 
confess his highest ambition it would not be 
" Champion West Highland Terrier Toby," (and 
get into " Vogue ") but one of those long-eared 
canines who go around with the fellers and have 
such a good time laughing. 

I led him up to some little boys with a view to 
distracting him, while the Illustrator darted down 
a wiggly road with a stream crossing it and a mill 

-J- 85 -J- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

beyond. As soon as He decides upon a composi- 
tion I try very hard to find something about the 
view, in order to justify his sketching it beyond his 
natural wilfulness. 

I was in hopes his choice concerned Stonewall 
Jackson and Barbara Fritchie, but the boys gave 
me no encouragement. They were playing in a 
gay, green square, opening off the main street. 
On one side was the stream which was slipping 
stealthily past the Illustrator that it might dash 
through the village and see the sights. I told the 
boys that I knew they had all the rightful informa- 
tion about Barbara Fritchie as I could see they 
were Scouts. And while they were not Scouts they 
rose to the compliment, and escorted me to the 
other side the bridge. Here a tablet read that her 
house had once stood upon this perilous point, di- 
rectly over the water. So I assume that it had 
been washed away and the stream is given wider 
bounds that it might not drown any more of his- 
toric Frederick. 

It was very disconcerting to have the house on 
the downtown side of the creek, for Stonewall 
Jackson could not possibly have come " up from 
the meadows rich with corn," by way of the Illus- 
trator's watery lane and on toward Harper's 
Ferry if the Fritchie story were true. I almost 
wished I had not seen the small boys who embar- 

-f-86-*- 







TH]-: TOLL HOUSE OX SOUTH MOUNTAIN. IMARYLAXD 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

rassed me further by asking if Toby belonged to 
the circus. 

" I seen one to a circus," argued the principal 
embryo Boy Scout to my cold negative. 

Toby nudged me. " Ask him what the dog 
done," he said to me. 

" He done nothin'," said the boy, thus inter- 
rogated by me. 

Really — I never did like young men. They 
aren't to be trusted. I walked up the street to an 
enchanting chemist of middle age, and bought 
some medicine for my cough (I love to speak of 
" my cough," it sounds so die-away) not that I 
cough much, but I wanted to talk about Barbara 
to him. I thought I ought to buy something first, 
but one does not need to buy anything of a South- 
erner if one really prefers to talk. I found that 
out afterwards. And they would give up a good 
sale any day to tell you of their town history. 

It was very interesting to notice the skill with 
which he skated over the thin ice of Barbara's 
story. Out of loyalty he wouldn't deny it, and, 
like Shaw's poet in his play, he " wallowed in the 
honour of a gentleman." He employed a certain 
deftness in leading one away from the subject to 
truths which are not questioned. At least they are 
questioned only by the Government that has been 
trying ever since the Civil War to avoid paying 

-h87-i- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

Frederick $200,000 and interest. Each year the 
Congressman for that district brings it up, and 
each year it is thrown out, and each year the citi- 
zens of Frederick pay interest to the banks who 
loaned them the money to keep the Confederate 
Early from destroying the town. 

Frederick was sympathetic with the North, and 
took pride in the great Union stores in their keep- 
ing. They were stacked up, I believe, in the old 
Baltimore and Ohio freight depot which is still 
standing, and, speaking of relics, is the oldest rail- 
way station in the world. Some one came dashing 
in on horseback one night, one of those nameless 
boys whose wild rides never got into poetry, urg- 
ing that the stores be hidden, for General Early 
was raiding through the country en route to an at- 
tack upon Washington. The citizens hurried away 
by train the rations for man and beast, and by the 
time Early arrived, confident of food and fodder, 
he found the depot empty. Enraged at this he 
threatened to destroy the town if the sum of 
$200,000 was not paid him with which to buy other 
stores, and the good townsfolk borrowed the money 
from the banks to save the city. But this so de- 
layed Early that his effort to reach Washington 
was of little value, and I do think it's horrid of 
Congress not to pay Frederick that money. 

The enchanting middle-aged chemist believed 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

that I had forgotten all about Barbara, so indig- 
nant I was over the shabby treatment of the town. 
And I might have forgotten had not a very trim 
type of corner drug store patron egged me on 
again. I noticed him when I came in. He had al- 
ready taken his " morning's morning," and was 
teetering about in a dignified fashion while he 
talked over our position in this present war. 
Rather, his companion talked and he disapproved, 
repeating at steady intervals: " Ain't we a powah? " 
until his companion settled the matter by saying: 
" No, we ain't a power," after which the trim non- 
abstainer turned to me. 

It was he who suggested my going to the 
printer's. The printer knew All, and while All 
might cause a good deal of uneasiness if it were 
applied to some historic characters, I had no 
qualms about i\Irs. Fritchie. But the printer was 
of a type (typographically speaking) new to me. 
He did not work on Easter Monday — nor would 
he let his machinery. Everything was as secretive 
about the establishment as Barbara's washed-away 
house. And I grew very discouraged, which is the 
way to become after trying very hard, for then 
something agreeable always happens. 

I sought out the Illustrator, for no matter how 
inefficient we feel each other to be, we always flock 
together when things look blue. Toby and I ap- 

-+•89-*- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

proached from the other side the stream by the 
busy old mill which didn't know about Easter 
Monday. The wagons go through the water, " also 
the Fords, but no automobiles," I was told, and 
there is a tiny suspension bridge, swaying like a 
trapeze, for foot passengers over which Toby had 
to be teased. " A nice circus dog," I told him, 
" can't swing on a trapeze." 

To offset this cowardice he growled at a rooster 
which was crowing at us, because the Illustrator 
had already gone and I couldn't find out All about 
Barbara Fritchie. An old gentleman in a back 
yard chided him for crowing while I chided Toby 
for growling, and in that way we became friendly. 
He was weeding the garden, but he had words to 
assure me that the suspension bridge had been 
there in War Times — " sure pop " — for, though 
a little chap, he was there himself. 

" Yes, ma am, stood on it to watch the soldiers 
wade through the water. The town was full of 
'em, Yanks and Rebs, all the time." 

I sighed. I was glad he stood on the bridge — 
at midnight — or whenever it was. And I tried not 
to wish that it had been Stonewall Jackson stand- 
ing there instead. I was rewarded for my ab- 
stemious wishing. " Yes, ma'am," continued the 
old gentleman shaking the dirt out of a weed. 
" Saw General Jackson pass." He threw the weed 

-+-90-J-- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

in one corner of the yard just as though he had 
said nothing at all. 

I put my toe in a knot hole of the fence and 
climbed higher. " General Jackson," I told him 
in a small fine voice, " must have come down Main 
Street or he couldn't have passed Barbara 
Fritchie's house." 

" Forded his boss right through thet air water," 
throwing another weed, " his colyum a'streamin' 
after him. Off to Harper's Ferry, 'n from there 
to Antietam." 

" My goodness gracious no! " 

" Sure pop. You ask the cobbler's wife." 

"Cobbler's wife?" 

" First turn to the right and on till you see the 
cobbler's. You ask her." 

I hated to leave that lovely man who could bring 
so much joy into a life while pulling weeds, but I 
did so want to meet the cobbler's wife. Toby and 
I flew around to the right. I warned him nerv- 
ously: " Behave yourself now. Everything depends 
upon our behaviour," and he did conduct himself 
with the greatest decorum. If I do say it Toby is 
the dog for a crisis. 

I fear they were about to have dinner in the back 
room, for the shoemaker had left his bench and his 
tools were laid out as neatly as a lady's manicure 
set. It was very warm, with the pleasant smell of 

-H-91-e- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

leather, and the room had some of those lovely old 
chah-s with legs sloping fore and aft. I don't see 
how I could notice them when I was so afraid that 
the wife wouldn't talk to me, but I am in the habit 
of seeing things now, and I keep on doing it even 
though my head gets full of rubbish like an old, 
old attic. 

But she came out from the back room and he 
and she and their daughter and I all shook hands, 
while a growing-up grandchild who wanted his din- 
ner looked unutterables at me from a distance. 

" Well," said the gentle old lady with a twist 
of a smile and brown eyes that still embraced the 
world, " I guess I can tell it." She smoothed her 
dress down over her knees. " I hardly know how 
to begin." 

" Barbara Fritchie " I encouraged. 

" That was wrong," assisted the old gentleman. 
" She was in bed." 

" We think it might be politics that got her name 
in," aided the daughter. 

Politics! Shades of Jeanne d'Arc! Catherine de 
Medici! Diane de Poitiers! 

" You see that house across the way? " the mother 
started again. I did; it wasn't very pretty but it 
was old. " It was just that way exceptin' that it 
had a railing across the steps when Mrs. Quantrille 
lived there." 

-J-92-J- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

"Mrs. Quantrille?" As the Illustrator would 
say : perfectly new stuff. 

" Yessum. The one that had the flag. I was in 
her household then. Her husband worked in Wash- 
ington. She was a mighty smart woman and a 
right handsome one. Everybody'd kinda look 
at her on the street. Yessum. And she was 
a Northerner, but we were all kinds in Fred- 
erick." 

" I fought with the South," said the shoemaker. 

" He did," continued his wife, " and my brothers 
fought for the North. The two armies used to 
come raidin' through the town, and pickin' each 
other off right in the street sometimes." 

*' Would you be scared? " I probed. 

" Scared? Why, I'd be that scared I couldn't 
tell the colours of the uniforms. Thought I saw my 
brothers in the front yard, and they were Rebs. 
But they never hurt women, neither side." 

" No, nobody ever hurt women in those days," 
said the old soldier. 

" But us girls used to have good times with both 
sides. We'd joke an' laugh with the Rebs, and 
they'd say they would come back and marry us, 
and while that would make us hoppin' mad some 
of 'em did come back and marry us." 

The old, old lady and the old, old gentleman 
smiled at each other. 

-^93^- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

" This ain't tellin' her about the flag," insinuated 
the husband. 

" No 'tain't. Daughter, run up and get that pic- 
ture of Mrs. Quantrille. You know, ma'am, we al- 
ways felt a battle ahead, and when the orders came 
from Lee for General Jackson — there didn't many 
call him Stonewall then — to march his troops 
through the town to seize Harper's Ferry, we felt 
something in our bones. He came by way of that 
creek." 

" Not past Mrs. Fritchie's house? " 

" No'm, just this side of it. We were all on the 
stoop watchin' for Mr. Jackson who, we had heard, 
always rode with a Bible under his arm. There 
was a good deal of delay along the road because you 
know, ma'am, they wait for the commissary. The 
Confederate band was playin' down at the drug 
store, and it was Hill — D. H. Hill, there were two 
in this corps — who sent for the musicians to serenade 
Mrs. Quantrille and us girls. He had reined his 
horse alongside of us and we were all cutting up. 

" All this time Mrs. Quantrille had a little Union 
flag in her hands. It's the rule when an army comes 
through a town that only the flag of the army is 
shown, so I reckon hers was about the only one 
flying. Mrs. Fritchie was a very old lady and was 
sick in bed that day." 

" But didn't anybody protest about it? " 
-e-94-?- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

" Well, Mr. Hill said, ' Madam, you ought to 
take that flag of yours and make an apron of it,' 
but quick as a flash she came back ' You ought to 
take yours, sir, and make breeches out of it.' They 
were terribly ragged, that corps. 

" Then Hill rode on and no sooner had he gone 
than one of the privates, gettin' into line, stabbed 
it with his bayonet, and used some language that 
wasn't very nice. Mrs. Quantrille was as perky as 
you please. She made a fuss about it, and said the 
man ought to be arrested for rudeness to a lady. 
So one of the officers rode on ahead and said he'd 
see to it. Southern gentlemen were very particular 
about language before a lady. I don't suppose 
anything was ever done because there was a good 
deal to think about just before a battle. 

" But Mrs. Quantrille said, ' Girls, have any of 
you got a flag ? ' We used to all carry Union flags 
in the bosom of our basques, and May went into 
the hall and took hers out. So by the time General 
Jackson came along she was waving one again. He 
never said a word that I can remember, and we 
were all so excited bowin' to him that we had to 
laugh afterwards because we forgot to look for his 
Bible. Yessum, we did. 

" It was the other Hill of Jackson's Division — I 
always call him the Hill on the cream coloured horse 
— who brought up the rear. And he said to Mrs. 

-i-95-i- 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

Quantrille, ' You ought to be shot for wavin' that 
flag.' His pistol was out of its holster but he didn't 
shoot her. And Mrs. Quantrille who always had 
the last word, said ' You'll be the one to be shot.' 
It seemed a kind of a prophecy, for he was killed. 
But then a good many was. And after that an- 
other soldier, encouraged by what Hill said, I 
reckon, cut the second flag out of her hand and 
trampled on it. So if the poet had got it right, 
he'd have had two flags torn down." 

" So that," I said, " is the story of Barbara 
Fritchie." 

" Yessum. They say people who write just 
naturally can't tell the truth — excuse me." 

" Money," said the shoemaker. 

" Politics," insisted the daughter who had come 
back with the photograph. 

" Romance," I suggested, not daring to urge 
" artistry." 

Toby and I walked up the street, going very un- 
easily toward Barbara Fritchie's tablet. I felt as 
though I had been taking finger prints on a flag 
staff. 

From a distance I heard the beating of drums 
and the sound of fifes. I thought the martial music 
had got into my brain along with the spell of the 
story, and that I must be dreaming. But the beat 
grew more insistent, and I abandoned the search 



f 



A FINE OLD STORY EXPLODED 

for the Illustrator in the good old search for the 
band. I looked down the little lane where Jack- 
son's men had marched, and there, to my chilling 
horror, saw an oncoming army. Over the swaying 
suspension bridge they marched, not the stalwart 
boys of Jackson's Division but a little company of 
little darkies. The only resemblance was the fife 
and drum, and the ragged condition of the corps. 
They bore two banners, one to announce a baseball 
game that afternoon and the other a painted notice 
in uncertain lettering which read: Dance Up To- 
night. 

But a drum is a drum for all that. On they swept 
through the town, passing Barbara Fritchie's tab- 
let out of compliment to the good lady. A yellow 
dog followed them proudly, and behind the yellow 
dog came a West Highland Terrier, and a beauti- 
ful woman with prematurely grey hair — who shall 
be nameless. 

On and on we marched as gay as linnets, until 
a certain roadster drew up alongside and the voice 
of the commander cried " Halt! " I spoke to him 
sternly : 

" Who touches a hair of my grey head 
Dies like a dog." " Get in," he said. 

And Toby and I under the Old Dominion of the 
stronger sex motored on to Antietam. 



97 



CHAPTER VI 

Too Much of Me in This, hut the Truth about 

Our Toll-gate Picture. History to 

Burn and — Virginia 

When I was a little girl there was a room in our 
stable with a platform at one end, used by the for- 
mer owner for billiards. It is hard to tell why he 
had the platform unless it was for the Look-out. 
For many years our coachmen, varying in colour 
from the ebony of Old Sam to the lobster hue of a 
country boy, who was known by us as Green 
Henry, slept there. That is, in a bed on the plat- 
form — like a succession of kings. 

I would like to talk about them but the Illustra- 
tor is already warning me if I make this book too 
long " it will scare them off," meaning that a thin 
book written by me is of more value than a fat one. 
Fat ones terrify him. When a new book of mine 
comes out he has a way of sticking his head in at my 
door saying: " Can't I go to bed? I've read a 
chapter." 

But Green Henry (I must say this) was brought 
frequently to my mind the more intimately I be- 
came acquainted with our chauffeur. To be sure 
our present driver was New York — or at least New 

-^98-^- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

Jersey — to the last " woid." But lie had the same 
interest in things about him that Green Henry had 
when he came to the great city to drive our horses. 
My mother is a timid woman and as the smallest 
reference to what we saw along the street was ac- 
companied by Green Henry's close attention we 
were obliged to see and speak to no one, all of us 
staring straight ahead in the hope that the new- 
comer to the State Capitol would emulate us. 

With the same cordiality that he embraced city 
life so did our genial chauffeur take to himself the 
ways of the country. He overtook them. He could 
tell the name of any bird on the wing no matter how 
distant; he knew the wild flowers by the wayside, 
indeed, went so close to recognise them that we 
feared the day would come when we would lie in 
the ditch along with the daisies. But nothing ever 
happened to us beyond a rather mean irritation 
when he would cry, as he tooled us out of a hedge ; 
" Nobody can beat me on eyesight." 

He was delighted with the custom of bowing to 
each other which is still charmingly preserved on 
Southern roads. And from an inclination of the 
head while driving he rapidly progressed to a sa- 
lute, a wave of the hand, and, finally, the long ex- 
tended arm of welcome — something after the man- 
ner of a monarch recognising his subjects. I recall 
it was when Green Henry began cheerily lifting 

-j-99-f- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

his hat to our passing friends as they bowed to us 
that the stern exigencies of Safety First caused us 
to rehnquish him. He went back to the farm — car- 
rying our good cook — and this gets me around to 
the beginning of the chapter, for a man who " slept 
home " took his place and the coachman's room was 
given over to us children. 

We scrubbed and aired it before it became a first 
class theatre, but there was always a pungent trace 
of the long line of servitors who had so fully occu- 
pied the stage before us. And on warm days, when 
the drama was intense, mothers and fathers were 
known to leave even before their children made 
their appearance. We gave several war plays, seri- 
ous plays in their intention, and we children could 
not understand the unseemly mirth among our el- 
ders when this very battleground was presented 
toward which we motored Easter Monday. 

It was called " Lost His Last Chance," a title 
to make any one think. Yet after the first lines of 
the prologue, which I had carefully put into rhyme, 
there was a great lack of self-control. Having writ- 
ten the play I spoke all the good lines. I came out 
wearing the red, white, and blue bunting used to 
drape our front porch on the Fourth of July. I 
was beautiful, but impeded by the twenty-two 
yards of drapery as my mother would not allow 
me to cut any of it up. I progressed as far as : 
H-100-?- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

*' Dear Friends, foul deeds and hard to beat 'em 

You'll find in plays of Ant-ie-eet'em." 

Then the uproar began. 

" Didn't you know it was pronounced An-tee- 
tum? " said my mother afterward. [" You see, 
Sam," as Frank Tinney would say, I put this in 
so that you'll all know how it is pronounced, and 
not keep waiting for the end of the joke.] 

I told this to W as we went along a most 

engaging road, and while he didn't care much about 
it I will say that the chauffeur laughed most satis- 
factorily. W was busy looking for toll-gates. 

We were agreed that the road was as good as any- 
thing in France and it seemed only right that we 
should pay something for it. We were just going 
in at the tip-toppy of the Blue Ridge when we 
found so lovely an old toll-gate ahead of us that we 
stopped on this side for a sketch. 

The chauffeur discovered the first white violets, 
the first buttercups, and a red clover which I was 
proud to tell him was sorrel. I spoke of the cus- 
tom in Normandy of staking the cows in a long 
line and making them eat with neatness and no 
waste. Whenever we are in perfectly simple sur- 
roundings with the birds singing in the bush, sun — 
some clouds — and a good white road, I do not think 
of any other part of America, but of France — or 
Austria — or Germany. Yet not of Italy. Italy 
-+• 101 -i- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

is so vibrant with old passions, so teeming with 
castles on grey hill tops, so hurt with the straining 
of beasts of too great burdens. South Mountain 
lay ahead of us and beyond that was the little creek 
of Antietam across which the two armies fought 
with the greatest loss of any day in the Civil War. 
And that is France — and Austria — and Germany. 

When the Illustrator had almost completed his 
sketch and Toby had run away in fear from a piece 
of earth moving unassisted in an even ridge — for 
he had not learned " mole " — I went up to the toll- 
gate lady who was working in her garden to say 
that we ought to pay toll for the house as well as 
the road. 

" Toll? " she repeated. " Tain't a toll-gate." 

I came over to her closely. I didn't want the Il- 
lustrator to hear. " It's got to be a toll-gate. My 
husband has been looking for a typical one and he 
says this is perfect." 

" 'Twas a toll-gate once," she admitted. " Tolled 
the road mighty nigh a hundred years, I reckon, but 
I plant tomatoes now. No, won't cost you a cent." 

" But don't you see," I whispered excitedly, " it's 
got to be an active toll-gate. If it isn't, he'll tear up 
the sketch and I do so want it in." 

*' In? " I told her about the book. She stared 
at me in a sort of happy daze. " This old ram- 
shackle in a book — well, what are we coming to? " 




BURN SIDE'S BRIDGE, ANTIETAM 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

I saw an opening. " It's up to you. I tell you 
what." I watched the Illustrator from afar as the 
plan took shape. " When we come along here, you 
just hold out your hand and say ' ten cents ' and 
then I'll give it to you. Say fifty if you want to. 
It's worth it." 

" Land sakes ! I'll get took up for it." 

She wouldn't do it. That sweet, tired, honest 
woman wouldn't do it. I kept on talking. I saw 
large possibilities of her making more than she ever 
would out of tomatoes. She need only hold up tour- 
ing motors with New York numbers. " Remember, 
cream background and blue lettering. If they are 
a young couple in a little car why only ask eight 
cents, if a large rich party, not carrying my book, 
ask a dollar. It will do them good, and they won't 
get a better road in Europe." 

She laughed and laughed at my nonsense. 
*' Land sakes," she kept repeating. But we finally 
effected a compromise. She went into the house 
and picked a ten-cent piece out of her poor worn 
purse, giving it to me. Four minutes after that as 
our car rolled up she came out sternly, and " Ten 
cents," she demanded, like the best actress on 
Broadway. 

Of com'se there is going to be a little trouble 
about this, but at the present writing the Illustrator 
has gone to the Lambs' Gambol, and I'll choose a 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

time to read it out to him when he loves the world 
— when he comes home from the Gambol for in- 
stance ! 

We stopped at Middletown to be sure that we 
were right for Boonsboro, questioning five very 
fat men who were sitting, quite correctly, on the 
porch of Koogle's candy store. I wanted to ask 
them if McClellan had marched via Boonsboro but 
the Illustrator thought it was better not to. We 
would be so disappointed had they gone another 
way. If this man had three eyes and didn't know 
it he would not consider that he had them. 

So swift was our pace that we arrived and left 
Boonsboro before we knew it and drove back a lit- 
tle to turn sharply to the left for Antietam Creek. 
The tablets along the country road began much 
sooner than we had expected. It gave us a thrill 
to see " Headquarters of the Army of the Po- 
tomac " marking where the tents had been pitched. 
It was a field of grain then, it is a field of grain now. 
Between that point and the creek, the bridges of 
which were so fiercely contested, were many mark- 
ers, great open scrolls, which gave the divisions of 
the Federals, told us when they were despatched to 
the bridges, when they were relieved and by what 
regiments. 

The history of the battle is exceedingly simple 
and I beg that I may tell a little of it. It is easier 

-^ 104 -i- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

than working out a picture puzzle, and I think in 
time you will find it more stimulating. It intro- 
duces some of our friends at Frederick and some 
who endured for the battle at Gettysburg three 
years later. 

On the 13th of September, 1862, McClellan com- 
ing into Frederick from Washington was handed 
an order found by a Yankee private, from Lee to 
D. H. Hill. It showed that the Confederates were 
at present divided on South Mountain — it showed 
to McClellan that it would be a great coup to place 
himself between them. " Sing opportunity! " 

But he did not go that night. He waited until 
the 14th. In the meantime the Confederates had 
consolidated, and when McClellan forced them to 
evacuate the gaps in the mountain it was with great 
loss of men. When Lee heard of the lost order- 
imagine the despair of this fine General! — he 
hastily withdrew his forces, which were nearing 
Hagerstown, moved to Antietam and sent for 
Jackson who had marched from Frederick — as we 
know — to Harper's Ferry. 

Had McClellan followed up his first attack with- 
out delay he might have gained the victory, so reads 
history, but another day was lost in skirmishing, 
and it was not until the 17th that the battle opened 
in earnest. Jackson's men were arriving, yet things 
were pretty shaky for the Confederates — 60,000 

-h 105 -i~ 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

men opposed to 87,000 Federals — when our friend 
A. P. Hill, of the cream coloured horse, leading the 
last division of Jackson's soldiers arrived from 
Harper's Ferry. They had travelled 18 miles over 
roads not such as we were enjoying, but they went 
immediately into action. They went without or- 
ders from Lee or anybody else as far as I can make 
out. They fell upon the Union men who had taken 
the bridges at all costs — and at such cost — and 
drove them back to their first entrenchments. 

Night came. Lee's army which was not on the 
defensive but the offensive in this battle, moved far- 
ther south, and McClellan, who was on the offensive 
not the defensive let them go. For this he was re- 
moved, and Burnside was put into command. The 
nation, I believe, rejoiced that at least Lee's inva- 
sion of the North had been checked, and they buried 
the 12,470 men who had checked him. 

A little company of school children with their 
teacher came along the road, as accustomed to the 
tablets as they were to the wild flowers, and look- 
ing at me curiously as I sniffled. They advised us 
to cross the ugly modern bridge ahead and go to 
the one now known as Burnside's, for there the 
fighting had been most furious. We went on 
through more peaceful country, fields of May 
wheat rich in promise, along the ridge which Lee's 
zeal had granted him. A fine old house stood at 

-i-106-i- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

the bottom of the hill across which the guns must 
have thundered. We asked a scrap of a boy with 
soft brown eyes who was swinging on the farmyard 
gate what he had done when the shooting began and 
he said " I don't just remember." One could 
hardly blame him, but I was sorry I couldn't find 
out some way or other, for it has always been a 
mystery to me how houses are evacuated during 
such times of stress. But he could only tell me that 
he was Mr. Nicodemus's little boy. 

The Burnside bridge over the stream is very 
lovely. We crossed again that we might read the 
memorials to the Northern men who had held it. 
The Illustrator brought me a little bunch of violets 
picked at the base of one column to unknown dead. 
Above rose the heights which Hill's men had 
wrested from the advancing Federals. It could 
have been no easy task to have climbed that steep. 
On one corner of the bridge Colonel Pope has 
erected a granite stone to the 35th Regiment of 
Massachusetts : 

" Who crossed the bridge and went up the lane 
and left there 214 killed and wounded. 

" Gloria est pro patria mori." 

So ran the inscription. 

There was time to sit quietly in the sunshine and 
think it out. I know, too, that it is glorious to die 
for one's country. I know it now after suffering 

-f-107-J- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

from doubt and confusion for twenty-two months. 
I know that the flesh must die that the spirit may 
be quickened. And what can patriotism be but 
spiritual manifestation? Why, after all, should a 
man fight for the mere dirt on which he chanced 
to be born unless it means man's highest expression 
of the inner life — the life that has naught to do 
with the love of man for woman or the material ties 
of hearth and home? 

And yet — again I am confuted — if this battling 
for a cause is constructive and not destructive, if 
it is a process of evolution, the following of a nat- 
ural law, why should the young men go before the 
old ? Why do not the old men go out to battle and 
the younger men fill their depleted ranks? I sup- 
pose I shall find an answer to this. One finds so 
many answers in these days to the problems of life. 

We secured at Antietam what we missed at Get- 
tysburg: the vision of a battle. It did not come 
from government roads, nor acres of land turned 
into park — the former yield of the good brown 
earth nullified. It came from the fields of grain 
serving as they had served in war times, ful- 
filling their mission as the soldier fulfilled his. 

Not long ago a friend of ours — a woman — ex- 
claimed over my joy in the quick return of the 
French peasants to their scarred farms. She 
thought a battleground should remain sacred, she 

-f-108-<- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

said it would be offensive to her to eat the bread 
of a blood-soaked earth. And I have no reply in a 
language fitting for the theme. But here are a few 
verses of a young American, Alan Seeger, who is 
with a regiment in the Champagne district of 
France. The entire poem was printed in the 
North American Review, and Mr. Review has been 
so good as to let me use them. 

"^ Under the little crosses where they rise 

The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed 
The cannon thunders, and at night he lies 

At peace beneath the eternal fusillade . . . 

" Obscurely sacrificed, his nameless tomb. 
Bare of the sculptor s art, the poet's lines 
Summer shall flush with poppy-fields in bloom. 
And Autumn yellow with maturing vines. 

" There the grape-pickers at their harvesting 

Shall lightly tread and load their wicker trays. 
Blessing his memory as they toil and sing 
In the slant sunshine of October days . . . 

'' I love to think that if my blood sJiould be 
So privileged to sink where his has sunk, 
I shall not pass from Earth entirely, 

But when the banquet rings, when healths are 
drunk, 

"And faces that the joys of living fill 

Glow radiant with laughter and good cheer. 
In beaming cups some spark of me shall still 
Brim toward the lips that once I held so dear.'* 
-e-109-«- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

It is all there, isn't it? I hope every one in every 
Broadway cabaret when glasses are lifted for years 
to come will think of this. 

We stopped at Sharpsburg for luncheon, sanely 
hungry after an emotional morning — just as it 
should be. The hotel was getting a new coat of 
paint and they said they never had anything to eat 
when they painted. We were served at the Nico- 
demus house further along by a brown-eyed young 
girl like those of the little chap who doesn't quite 
remember what he did during the Civil War. The 
pretty girl was his cousin and used to live in that 
very farm house. The three of us sat in a long dark 
dining room while she graciously served us, talking 
of what the Nicodemus family did when Lee lev- 
elled his guns at the foe across the valley. " They 
just naturally all cleared out," she told us, which 
was a very sensible thing to do considering that the 
thick brick walls are still encasing the lead of both 
armies. 

She was a nice girl and agreed with us, saying it 
was mighty pretty about here. I looked for the 
restlessness that marks the faces of so many coun- 
try girls of the North, but she was passive. Pos- 
sibly that very love of home — not of the wide coun- 
try but of the small environment — is the quality 
that made it rational for the Southern graduate 
from West Point to cleave to his state in preference 

-h 110 -i- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

to his nation when he walked in his Garden of Geth- 
semane and made his choice. 

When we arose to go and I reached for my purse 

W began hissing to me: " Don't insult her — 

not a single cent," like a nest of snakes. This would 
have been surprising, for he is an honest man, and 
had eaten a great many eggs, had I not under- 
stood his fear that I was going to tip her. I would 
as soon have thought of tipping the First Lady of 
the Land as of offering anything beyond the price of 
the meal and our thanks to pretty Miss Nicodemus. 

I said as much when we got outside and W , 

who had put on a grey suit that morning and for- 
gotten his rock-ribbed forefathers, replied that you 
could never tell what mistakes a Northerner might 
make. 

Thus varying the day with pleasant wrangles 
we came to a new diversion, perhaps one should 
say division, for it was the Potomac River spanned 
by a long bridge. He went ahead to take a pic- 
ture of it with our car magnificently crossing, but 
he had no sooner reached the other side and begun 
waving for us to start than the chauffeur discovered 
a sign overhead which threatened a heavy fine if we 
passed without paying toll. There was no one 
about to take our money, still both of us were cau- 
tious as to our expenditures and the enraged 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

W had to return to tell us that the toll-gate 

was at the far end. 

A very dear old toll gentleman explained that 
they had put up the sign as a horrible warning. " I 
cain't always ketch 'em," he said, which was the 
truth, as in a running contest he couldn't have 
caught a crab going backward. We asked if any 
one was low enough to escape tolls, and we learned 
that there are people who make a regular business 
of it. They have an instinct for it like pickpockets, 
counterfeiters, or safe breakers. I thought it must 
be very uncomfortable to be handicapped by such 
an instinct. It would not be as lucrative a pursuit 
as pocket picking, and the field of one's industry 
would be limited, for he would have to spend his 
life hanging about toll-gates whereas pockets were 
in every part of the world. 

I fear I spoke too sympathetically, but W 

came up, turning the old man's attention by the de- 
sire to know something of a monument high on 
the bank which he had just " taken." The old man 
told us it was put up for Rumsey who, he said, 
" discovered steam." There is nothing like enter- 
prise for acquiring a monument, but I looked into 
Mr. Rumsey's past more definitely and found he 
had applied the power to a boat, an honour shared 
with several other discoverers. 

" It's goin' to rain," our old new friend tolled 
-^112-i- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

(forgive me) as we left him, " the Baltimore Sun 
says so." And this raised the question as to the 
state we were in. Anybody in Maryland would be- 
lieve the Baltimore Sun, but could its blighting 
prognostications be taken seriously in the Vir- 
ginias? We asked a huge black fellow guiding 
oxen just where we were and he replied that he 
" reckoned we was in East Virginia," then con- 
fessed frankly as we pinned him down about this 
state new to us, that he disremembered. 

It was West Virginia, and after some driving 
along a country lane, fields right to the motor's toes, 
we came to Harper's Ferry. High on a bluff over- 
looking the merging of the Shenandoah River with 
the Potomac is a fine hotel known as the Hill Top 
Inn. It is managed by an intelligent coloured man 
and his wife, and that is the finest monument which 
could be erected to the memory of John Brown. 

From the bench on which the Illustrator was 
sketching they pointed out the inconspicuous shaft 
far below, erected to the great fanatic's memory. 
I didn't know much about John Brown, at least I 
" disremembered " save that " John Brown's body 
lies mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes 
marching on." So we listened to the two as they 
spoke most impersonally of the man who had given 
his life to free their people. He had come out of 
Kansas. He had been lawless enough there to bear 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

watching, for, violently anti-slavery, he had been 
instrumental in the deliberate killing of five slave 
owners of that state, yet I cannot find that any 
steps were taken to indict him for these murders. 

In time he conceived a well formed plan to make 
raids into Virginia and Maryland, seize slaves and 
hurry them through to Canada. Some of the cooler 
abolitionists in the Eastern States would have noth- 
ing to do with him, but he secured funds, and with 
eighteen followers actually captured the United 
States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, cut the telegraph 
wires, and entrenched in an engine house, where the 
little shaft now rises, held all comers at bay until 
overcome by marines. Curiously enough, two 
United States army officers then known as Colonel 
Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart of 
Gettysburg fame — but, alas, no longer under the 
same flag — effected his arrest. 

" He wasn't any more crazy than I am," said the 
intelligent coloured proprietor of the stately inn. 
" He showed that at the trial. But when you be- 
lieve in only one thing and you believe in it hard 
you seem crazy to people who don't care much. It 
appears to me to keep your balance you got to be- 
lieve in a heap of different things." 

So John Brown, the insurrectionist, was hanged. 
He died with dignity if he lived with violence, ad- 
vancing his belief more in the quitting of life than 

-^114<-f- 










THE POTOMAC AT HARPERS FERRY 



t.^- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

by any fierce holding of it. lie became a martyr 
and his private pr-^iudice grew into a sacred 
Cause. He beheved that naught could be accom- 
plished without the shedding of blood — he gave 
his own. It takes a superman for that especial 
sacrifice. 

The hotel proprietors withdrew to welcome a 
luxurious motor, and Anna Dore with her two little 
friends next occupied our attention. Anna Dore 
was of a dark skinniness familiar to my youth, and 
she was the self-elected leader in the game of roll- 
ing coloured Easter eggs down the hill — this as- 
sumed leadership is also familiar. Each had her 
basket of eggs, the contents of which were rolled 
rather gingerly, the egg getting the farthest win- 
ning the other trophies. It was an encouraging 
refutation of the old adage which is being continu- 
ally applied to me by an anxious family that " A 
rolling stone gathers no moss." 

I asked them what they did with so many cracked 
eggs — I was hoping for the present of a smashed 
one — and Anna Dore replied that they only rolled 
them until hunger (presumably theirs) was stilled. 
She had another game which consisted of tapping 
upon each other's shell to see which cracked first. 
" Do you pick? " said Anna Dore to me very po- 
litely. 

" She does," returned the Illustrator, and as I 
-H-115-<- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

did not wish her to get a wrong idea of married hfe 
I hurried on to Toby. 

He had gone off with a lop-eared beagle whose 
charm consisted in leading dogs strange to the town 
along the perilous edges of the cliff. And no mat- 
ter how near death the chauffeur afterwards 
brought me, I have always been grateful to him for 
pursuing those will-o'-the-wisps. It was not a 
chauffeur's duty, nor was he in training for it, but 
this is one of the penalties for taking a friendly in- 
terest in his employers. We finally got under way, 
Toby lunging out and barking farewell to the 
beagle. " I like this Harper's Fairy," he cried, not 
understanding at all. But it made us think for the 
first time of the ferry and of Harper. Where was 
it? Who was he? I doubt if even the coloured 
proprietor would know. 

And now — evening, with the first yellow clay of 
Virginia prematurely beginning in West Virginia. 
We passed through Charlestown with a memorial 
hall — given by Charles Broadway Rouss — showing 
a huge picture of the donor in the steeple. I don't 
know why more millionaires who build great edi- 
fices have not thought of this pictured fame. 
Imagine Mr. Woolworth's face going all the way 
down his tower — the longest face in the world ! 

Sharp at the state line which bounced us into Vir- 
ginia we struck some bad going. The road was 

-i-116-i- 



HISTORY TO BURN AND— VIRGINIA 

probably built by one of the First Families of 
Virginia — and never touched since. It was not the 
welcome we would have planned, although it was 
something we feared. But we were distracted by a 
youth ploughing the rich clay of a field. He wore a 
dull blue shirt and his face was glowing from too 
long a task. There were four great black horses 
straining at the plough, but as we passed he pulled 
them into inaction. He watched us, and I thought 
there was a terrible despair in his face, despair that 
he must plough of a sweet Spring evening while we 
drove by. I longed to tell him that he made the 
finest picture I had ever seen, and my first pic- 
ture of Virginia. But I could only wave to him, 
and immediately what bitterness there was left 
him — or he was too proud and too courteous to 
show it — he lifted his broad hat and swung it in the 
air, then went on with his work. 

And while the pike behaved itself a few yards 
further on, I found this first experience over the 
state line entirely Virginian. When the way is bad 
lift your head and hear the mocking bird ; turn your 
head and see the beauty about you. Look to the 
people and the road will be easier by the smile they 
give to you. It is unending — and takes no toll. 



117 



CHAPTER VII 

Officer Noonan All Over These Pages, an Um- 
brella, the Shenandoah Valley, Wicked 
Gypsies, and a Shampoo 

There was a progressive hotel in Winchester, 
Virginia, which sent out advance notices of itself 
like a well-billed play. " Hungry? " read a sign on 
a tree with the name of the hotel underneath. 
" Bath? " it continued further on. " Sleepy? " In- 
deed every inducement was offered except " Dog? " 
and for that reason we passed it when we reached 
the old town stopping at the newer Hotel Jack. 

It was not until Toby and I had triumphantly 
gained our rooms that he read out to me a notice 
on the back of the door: " No dogs allowed." But 
nothing was said to us at the desk, and we assume 
that the landlord had wisely put elastic in his rules 
which gave the motorist extra privileges. He is 
right in this for the automobilist is willing to pay 
for extravagances, and the possible annoyance of a 
dog should, I think, go down on the bill. It hasn't 
as yet, but I see no reason why the price should not 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO . 

be " $2.00 with bath," and " $2.50 with bath and 
dog." 

They could not accommodate the Illustrator, 
however, with any sort of liquid refreshment less 
soft than a down pillow. Many other towns in Vir- 
ginia have gone distressingly dry and in November 
the whole state will be forced into grape juice tod- 
dies. The clerk assured W that he would be 

accommodated at the club now occupying General 
Phil Sheridan's old headquarters. " Just explain 
the situation," he hospitably advised, and while the 
club would no doubt have astonishingly done this, 
the Northern man felt that by no stretch of decency 
could he sign the visitors' book. 

We walked up the street after an excellent meal 
to see this fine old house which had been described 
as opposite the new library instead of the new 
library opposite it. Both buildings were impres- 
sive, although we mistook the character of the more 

recently built edifice. W was saying that it 

looked as a library should when one of the ladies 
of Winchester sent " daughter " in to buy " five 
twos, three ones, and a postal card." It was just as 
satisfactory in the character of post office and 
across the street was the new library, excellent too, 
but not in the Georgian style suitable for the home 
of Elsie Dinsmore, or the books concerning her. 

I knew that I should go into this library and find 
H-119-<- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

out historical truths about Winchester, but I knew, 
also, that I wasn't going to do it when it was so 
much pleasanter walking about the streets listening 
to what people were saying. " Daughter " had 
come out of the post office and she went on with her 
elders, joining in the conversation with that grown 
up freedom which young people enjoy, yet do not 
take advantage of in the South. They were all 
agreed that Mrs. Kendall had right pretty hair, 
and daughter said that whenever mother saw her 
coming up the street " she hollers out: ' Here comes 
Mrs. Kendall with her pretty hair ' " — as though 
Mrs. Kendall might not have it with her every 
day. 

It was amusing to hear the child introduce " hol- 
ler " into correct conversation. I have had to re- 
buke an excellent Virginia maid for telling me that 
" he is hollerin' for his breakfast," whether refer- 
ring to W or the canary bird. I felt at the 

time that she was in a state of perplexity over my 
criticism, and having heard the word frequently 
used down there for " call " I presume I am in a 
position to apologise to her. 

They drifted up the best street while we cut into 
a narrow alley for no reason in the world save that 
we could do exactly as we pleased, and came out 
on the highway before a most beautiful old hotel. 
It was denied its original purpose, but a small por- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

tion of it served at the time that we were there as a 
show room for Antique Furniture. There could be 
no better shelter for the old mahogany of the South 
than this splendid ante-bellum building. We stood 
before it a long time and I went back (in the rain 
the Baltimore Sun had sent us) later in the even- 
ing to look up at its wide silent verandas and sad 
unlighted windows. 

More than any other form of housing for hu- 
man beings, a hotel needs people to render it any- 
thing but a shell. Yet one is conscious of this lack 
rather in the closed hotels which never boasted a 
history. How quickly all character is gone from a 
mammoth Summer inn when the shutters go up! 
How meaningless are the walls of a city caravan- 
sary when it is deserted by its clientele ! A hotel is 
not built to husband books or pictures or household 
effects. It is a roof tree for men and women, and, 
sometimes, if the rules are gentle, children and 
dogs. But an ancient tavern is pervaded with 
memories, and like a tired mortal who has richly 
experienced the weal and woe of life, it retains 
a quality that holds the interest of the mere pass- 
erby. 

In my case I was not a passerby. I was a lin- 
gerer-there, and a returner-to. I was misunder- 
stood of course. When I came back in the Balti- 
viore Sun's rain late that night the Illustrator, 

-^121^- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

rudely aroused from his first sleep, said I was hang- 
ing around there in the hope that the Antique Fur- 
niture shop might open. And while this was un- 
true, it put a new thought in my head and I deter- 
mined to be on hand the first thing in the morning. 

The rain, set up in heavy type, continued and I 
could get no encouragement from the coloured 
waiter at breakfast over its possible cessation. The 
cloud burst would not interfere with my going to 
the Antique Furniture but it would dim the joy of 
motoring ninetj^-four miles up the great and his- 
toric Shenandoah Valley. A little girl who sat at 
table next to me was equally discomfited because 
— new and alarming child — she couldn't go to 
school. *' And it's French day. And I do like my 
French. And I get good marks in my French." 

" Listen to the canary bird singing so happily," 
said the mother with an inane attempt to distract 
her. " It doesn't want to get out of its cage." 

" Let it holler," said the young person. " It 
doesn't know how nice it is to get out, and I have 
learned all about it." 

Griefs are relative, but you can't make the ag- 
grieved one admit it. I had wanted all my life to 
see the Shenandoah Valley and she wanted to have 
her French lesson yet I suppose her disappointment 
was as great as mine. I had one advantage over 
her: I was going just the same. The touring mo- 

H-122-+- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

torist who is stayed by rain would stop and turn 
back at the first mud hole though the sun shone. 

At least, we were going after I had visited the 
Taylor Hotel, for that was the name of the old 
inn. I abandoned the bills and bags to the Illustra- 
tor and borrowed an umbrella at the office. The 
clerk carried it down the steps for me and opened 
it with so great a show of good manners that I went 
off in a daze, forgetting to thank him. Once at the 
furniture shop a man oiling an old table came for- 
ward to say that the proprietor, an antiquarian of 
note, was moving his effects across the street, but 
to make myself at home. This I did, weaving my 
way about beautiful mahogany at very low prices 
and telling myself that I already had one side- 
board and no dining room. I passed into the court 
now roofed, but that had once been open ; the rooms 
gave on galleries running about three sides of the 
hollow square, while the stage coaches and post 
chaises were driven in from the fourth side after 
the fashion of old English inns. 

I did not get all this by intuition but was grace- 
fully apprised of it by Mr. Noonan. Mr. Noonan 
appeared suddenly from nowhere with a nickel de- 
vice of some sort on his blue cap which I took to be 
the insignia of nothing less than a colonel. It was 
hard to believe he was a roundsman going around, 
hard to believe from the information he gave me 

.-«- 123 -e-. 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

and his manner of delivering it. One would never 
stop a New York policeman to ask him if the block 
house in Central Park was put up as a protection 
against the Indians or the English. But Officer 
Noonan had the history of Winchester and of the 
Taylor Hotel at his tongue's end. 

It was just as good as I felt it would be — this old 
place. It had been built in the middle of the eight- 
eenth century when it was known as the Edward 
McGuire Tavern. " But Doctor von Witt would 
tell you all about that," he had a way of saying 
when dates became a little persistent. They had 
all been there : Washington, when he assisted Brad- 
dock, and General Braddock himself, fighting the 
Indians stupidly in British formation, demanding 
it of others and going to his death. Davie Crockett 
had stayed there. I couldn't find out why, though 
in the report I gleaned from one history that " With 
little education he became a noted hunter." Henry 
Clay rested his horses on his way to White Sulphur 
Springs; Daniel Webster in 1852 leaned over the 
railings to address the people below. 

" Thomas J. Jackson," as the general so signed 
himself, hung his call to arms on the walls, and the 
tavern, by that time changed in name to the Taylor 
Hotel, was deserted for a space as the men of Win- 
chester responded. Then came the occupation of 
the town by whatever successful army that chanced 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

to pass through. Union troops, Confederate 
troops, Union troops again, each side making the 
hotel its general headquarters until it must have 
been hard for the Southern barkeeper to know 
whether to mix poison or honest liquor. In one day 
the hotel changed hands five times, and if I quote 
correctly, Winchester endured over seventy occu- 
pations and evacuations of the two armies. 

I am afraid to look this up for fear it will be 
wrong, and I couldn't press Officer Noonan too 
closely. It would have been as rude as asking him 
what he had in the cigar box he was firmly carry- 
ing. I know one thing, I never had a more lovely 
morning, rain or shine, and Toby and I splashed 
over to the mysterious Dr. von Witt feeling that 
there was nothing more to be said. But there was 
a little more. 

I found the antiquarian and guide among his 
treasm-es — Treasures of the Humble they might be 
called for they were easily within one's means. But 
there was a safe in the room, and out of it came a 
ledger and another time-stained document for 
which we might possibly swap our automobile if we 
threw in Toby. 

The ledger was of the Edgar McGuire Tavern of 
1763 proving that Edward Braddock and Daniel 
Morgan — a great Indian fighter — and George 
HoUings worth (comrade of Lord Fairfax I think) 

-J-125-J- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

all ate very little and drank a great deal. They 
were particularly fond of a " bumbo " which cost 
one shilling three pence, and judging by its steady 
demand before a dinner must have been the cock- 
tail of the day. 

Then Dr. von Witt " because you are fond of 
these things," took out the other document, lifted 
it from its wrappings and displayed the neat ac- 
count of the young surveyor George Washington. 
The bill covered the two years from 1747 to 1749 
when he was occupied in surveying the great estates 
of Lord Fairfax. The whole sum rendered was 
something under one hundred dollars and of this 
poor little George received but thirteen dollars in 
cash ; the rest he had eaten up, rendering faithfully 
to my Lord Fairfax the bags of flour, flitches of 
bacon and other commodities which go to make a 
man the Father of his Country. 

We are so accustomed to portraits of our first 
President looking out at us benignly, with snow- 
white hair arranged something the way I do mine, 
that it is hard to believe he could ever have car- 
ried the chain for so many months with such poor 
results. But I found the story much less irritating 
than the outrageous one of the cherry tree, and 
more of an incentive to the young politicians of the 
country to work with the hands and leave election- 
eering to others. 

-j-126-f- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

Since he was not of age the acquittal had been 
countersigned by Lawrence Washington, and to 
my shame be it said I had forgotten that Lawrence 
was his consumptive half-brother who died shortly 
afterwards leaving the industrious civil engineer 
the estate of Mount Vernon. I think the antiqua- 
rian's faith in me was shaken by this unfortunate 
revelation, this and the divulgence that we were mo- 
toring on without further explorations in Winches- 
ter. " Do you know," he said solemnly, " that this 
town is historically second to but one other in the 
South? " I looked out of the window fearing my 
expression would reveal my quick wonder as to the 
name of the first town. The old hotel looked across 
at me. In the rain I could see the Illustrator mak- 
ing a sketch and Officer Noonan talking to our 
driver. No, we could not give up the car for young 
George's bill but would, oh would Dr. von Witt 
exchange it for the chauffeur ! 

The good antiquarian's eyes followed mine, but 
they did not seek the chauffeur. They were on the 
old building. 

"It is to be altered soon. That is why I am 
moving out." 

"Altered? For preservation? " 

" No," said he bitterly, " for a five and ten cent 
store." 

And I here beg Mr. Kresge to keep the old 
-i- 127 -*- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

f a9ade as it is, or may the town of Winchester once 
more rise up and turn the invading army from its 
door. 

Since the bill was paid and the baggage strapped 
on we were ready to start up the Valley — ready, 
except for the umbrella. It wasn't much of an um- 
brella and I haven't much honour, but sufficient to 
guarantee a return of the kindly loan. For all one 
knew it might have been left at the hotel by L. M. 
H., the nice young man who had also forgotten the 
collar — and a clean one — which was found in my 
top dresser drawer. I know that his initials are L. 
M. H., for the collar says so, and I know he is a nice 
young man, as he had dumped into the drawer a 
quantity of small paper flags with which he had evi- 
dently been " tagged " on Belgium Day. So I left 
the collar hoping that he might return — besides, it 
didn't fit the Illustrator. 

The most charming thing about Winchester was 
the leaving of it, which sounds ungrateful but read 
along, for Officer Noonan said he would take the 
umbrella back himself as he continued on his 
rounds. The last we saw of him he was wading 
through the flood with it in one hand and the enig- 
ma cigar box in the other. " It's just Southern 
courtesy in a nutshell," said the Illustrator. 

But I confounded him with a line of Chaucer. 

" A verray parfit gentil knight," said I. 
-M28-e- 







: i^ ^ 



A RELIC OF AXTJvBI'^LLl^M DAYS— THE TAYLOR HOTEL 
AT WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

The rain obligingly lessened as we reached the 
first toll-gate, which suited us very well, as it is 
pleasant to chat with the keepers and we can't ex- 
pect them to get wet while we are asking if they 
think it is going to clear up. Some did away with 
all efforts to engage them in conversation by stick- 
ing out a warming pan from the door into which we 
dropped our ticket. At least it looked like a warm- 
ing pan or a skillet with a long handle, the gift of a 
hotel which lay ahead of us. A hotel evidently 
does not read its Gideon Bibles. Not only the left 
hand knoweth what the right hand doeth when the 
patron gets something for nothing, but the left re- 
peateth it in big print on the other side the article. 
They " holler " it out so loud that you can't make a 
gift of the thing even to a blind man. 

The only way a woman can ever dispose of the 
fans she receives at restaurants — and get some 
credit for her generosity — will be to find a race 
on a South Sea island who will take the lettering 
for part of the ornamentation. I have often 
thought how agreeable it would be to discover a 
country like this where the inhabitants had a sense 
a humour but had never heard a single one of the 
fine old stories which were so much better than are 
the new ones. Fancy hearing the best joke in the 
world for the first time ! 

We must get beyond the first toll-gate for there 
-^129^- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

are nineteen of them on this route. You pay for 
the whole lot at once and it is a bargain as the long 
slip of tickets have been reduced gradually from 

$4.65 to $1.79. W , who believes in statistics so 

long as other people collect them, was filled with 
pride of me when I told him at the end of the run 
that the tickets were collected by three old men, 
four young men, eight old women, four young 
women, and two whose age will receive the benefit 
of the doubt. As the darky expressed himself con- 
cerning the advisability of the chicken hash at 
breakfast, they were kind of " so-so " as to their 
years. 

I think this toll-gating should really be a job for 
old people or for crippled ones. And the control- 
lers of the roads must agree with me for many of 
the little houses were presided over by men without 
an arm. If any one follows us on this route I wish 
he could find out and let me know why such a quan- 
tity of young men in the South have lost an arm or 
a hand. It must be that they work in machinery 
when they are children, doing the tasks of the elders 
with the carelessness of youth. I could never lead 
up to the query without giving possible offence, or, 
as the chauffeur put it, " without stepping on their 
toes " — which would be a mean thing to do to a man 
not quite all there as to his extremities. 

Some one in Winchester told us to ask at the 
-»-130-«- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

second gate about the woman stationed there in 
war times who held up and demanded toll from 
the Union Army as they were seeking Jackson. 
We hear very little of Stonewall Jackson in the 
Shenandoah Valley, only of Sheridan who devas- 
tated it so completely in 1864. But Jackson in 
1862 seized vast stores of the Union forces under 
Milroy, Banks, Shields, and Fremont. Sheridan 
was not alone in recognising the advantage of 
controlling the Shenandoah. It not only was a 
rich granary for the Southern people, but its level 
length furnished an easy approach to Harper's 
Ferry, and from there to Washington and Balti- 
more. I suppose there were many rides as dashing 
as Sheridan's if one would only stay long enough 
in the public library to find out about them and not 
go off to look at hats. And I think a public library 
should be in a remote part of town far from mil- 
linery. 

We couldn't get a word from the toll-gate lady 
about the story so vaguely outlined at Winchester. 
But she thrust out a warming pan just as her prede- 
cessor might have thrust a gun, and while it is a 
brave deed to hold up scouts — even Boy Scouts — I 
should think that a woman at a toll-gate would, 
from long experience at holding up, be in a state of 
preparedness which renders her deed less remark- 
able. 

H-131-<- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

We couldn't care much about the doubtful story 
anyway as we had to concentrate our weak intel- 
lects on Sheridan's ride up the Valley. The road 
invited speed, although Mr. Noonan had warned 
us there were " constibules " behind every bush to 
discourage any pace swifter than the doughty gen- 
eral's. [I love that word doughty and I haven't an 
idea what it means, but as it is always applied to 
generals it may have something to do with epau- 
lets.] In these days of swiftly covering the ground 
en auto it is difficult to give any credit to the feat 
of galloping a horse almost twenty miles, but let 
the motor break down and let the motorist walk 
back three miles to a village or trot back with a bor- 
rowed horse and he will have an idea of the momen- 
tum of General Sheridan when he reached his 
troops in two hours' time as I read somewhere. He 
even had breath enough left to rally the disheart- 
ened and give General Early's men the second sur- 
prise of the morning. 

In truth there were three surprises, and while I 
say " in truth," I am feeling a little nervous about 
it for the story was told me by an old soldier with 
whom time has possibly juggled fact and fiction. 
The first surprise was on the Union troops sitting 
down to breakfast as Early's men descended upon 
them; the second was on Phil Sheridan who had 
spent the night at Winchester and was riding back 

-i- 132 -f- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

to his command leisurely with nothing " in his 
bones," telling him that there was havoc ahead. The 
third surprise was on the Confederate soldiers, who 
after dispersing the enemy sat down to finish up 
the breakfast so hastily abandoned by them. And 
there seems to be no moral in this at all, for, as every 
one knows, women must work and men must eat 
and General Sheridan had every right to sleep at 
his headquarters. 

The only thing I can get out of it beyond the 
splendour of the story is the necessity of a leader. 
There were no finer troops in the world than the 
Union soldiers, but there must be a controlling 
power. I can't understand how a Divinity can be 
questioned when we recognise this great necessity 
in all the kingdoms which make up the universe. 
I don't care whether it is a male or a female head 

{ I tell this to W often who thinks it should be 

a male) but a household or an army, a nation or a 
sphere can't go far without one. 

It is all very well for me to speak lightly of these 
armies remeeting at Cedar Creek on that day of 
October, 1864, but there wasn't anything funny 
about it then. It is never funny to us now when the 
commemorating shafts of marble begin. The sun 
was beaming as we descended at the creek, and 
every flower of the season was lifting its head to 
peep at the glory. Spring was in full blossom here. 

-»-133-e- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

We had driven out of the cold straight into the 
heart of it as one turns undeviatingly to the splen- 
did warmth of a friend when trouble is our portion. 
There had been lilacs as early in the day as Stras- 
burg, and the hills were pink and white with the 
glowing tree which seems to have no name. But 
on the banks of Cedar Creek was a blue flower 
which made me catch my breath, and my brain 
whirled a little. 

I don't know, now, whether it is all a dream — my 
seeing these blue flowers before. But I remember 
(it's another " I remember ") one Sunday morning 
we didn't go to church — and that was remarkable 
enough. All of us got in the carriage with Black 
Bess in the shafts and we drove far out into the 
country to a creek. Flowers were blooming, blue- 
bells they must have been, just like the flowers of 
Cedar Creek. It was so lovely — not being in 
church — and so lovely anyway, that I have often 
tried to find the same spot when I have gone back 
home. But I have never had a trace of it, and my 
father isn't here any longer, and my mother doesn't 
know what I am talking about. " Didn't go to 
church? " she repeats. 

Yet I had always felt that I would see it again, 
and so I caught my breath when we came to this 
battleground fulfilling entirely my sweet old pic- 
ture that has faded from all memories but mine. I 

-h 134 -^ 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

don't know what it " means " — if it means anything 
— this deep longing to realise again that happy 
landscape, and to discover its only satisfactory rep- 
lica to be a battlefield. Unless — after many years 
of life — I would not find complete contentment in 
a stretch of earth which held no sorrow. I may 
have often passed the place at home and never 
known it, for I could no longer recognise as beauti- 
ful — nor as mine — a nameless creek and bluebells 
without meaning. But here I stooped and picked 
the flowers with some small understanding of bleed- 
ing wounds. What does old Omar say: 

*' I sometimes think that never blows so red 
The rose as where some buried Caesar bled; 
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears 

Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely 
Head." 

There was another high shaft beyond here, yet I 
cannot remember exactly where we passed it. " To 
all Confederates," ran the offering. It rose from 
out the grain with no Sheridan to trample it, and 
again the old striving for the answers to life op- 
pressed me. Why should God's food for His peo- 
ple be deliberately destroyed in time of war ? Why 
should this be if war is not destructive? Why 
should the grain die before its purpose is fulfilled 
or young men go before their fruition? How I 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

long to live to see the spiritual development from 
this present-day annihilation of the body! Alas! 
It seems that only the spirit will be left. 

Some distance beyond the battleground we our- 
selves were met by an opposing force which stood 
valiantly in the middle of a bridge we were crossing 
and waved for us to stop. It was a petticoat power, 
the whole costume a glare of red, yet we all felt 
guilty as we lessened our speed, wondering if one of 
the constables had so disguised himself. Coming 
nearer we found the flaring beacon to be an un- 
usually pretty gypsy begging in broken English 
that we assist her band. There, just beyond the 
bridge we came upon the Romany up-to-date. 
They were all packed into three old automobiles, 
probably stolen since purloining little boys has gone 
out of fashion, and not one of the cars would, as 
the French say, " march." 

I suppose they were full of water from the heavy 
rains for we knew as much about it — and more — 
as the gypsies themselves. A very handsome young 
man, a woman with a baby and an old crone smok- 
ing a pipe were pushing one car about in vain cir- 
cles, all of them shrieking with laughter, while a fine 
Romany patriarch looked on majestically and did 
nothing. They spoke almost no English, the young 
man shouting at us as though we were deaf, " Car- 
bur-et-or no go." It would have been a very dismal 

-H 136 -h- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHA^NIPOO 

situation for me, with all the bedding piled into the 
tonneaus as wet as the magnetos evidently were, 

and for the sake of old days when W and I 

would spend many an hour on foreign waysides 
looking appealingly at passing motors I impor- 
tuned both of the men to do what they could for 
the strangers in a strange land. 

They flung themselves upon the machines, al- 
though they appreciated that very little could be ac- 
complished until the coil dried out, and I was im- 
mediately surrounded by the women and children. 
I gave the one with the baby half a dollar that I 
might escape further grafting, and out of grati- 
tude, so she said, the beautiful young girl began to 
tell my fortune. I did not wish to hear anything 
about a handsome blond man, as that might set me 
to looking for him, but she was persistent. She was 
persistent to the point of asking for a silver piece 
— which she would return — the better to read my 
palm, and I watched her with amusement as she 
abstracted from my purse, under cover of my hand- 
kerchief, several coins and proceeded to distribute 
them over her person. 

To quote the Illustrator this awkward thieving 
was very " rough stuff " for a Romany, or possibly 
the green goods men of today find opponents 
equally keen in city folk. I have always said that 
I would know when my pocket was being picked, 

-e-137-J- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

and I not only knew this but felt sorry for her 
incapacity. 

When she had finished telling me about the 
blond young man who was not as distracting as 
she had imagined he would be, I asked her to re- 
place the money. In fact I commanded her to put 
back the money. My blood was up. I come of 
fighting ancestors even if I don't wear buttons and 
badges. My language was not elegant nor could 
she understand anything but the primeval anger 
that lay behind it. 

" Put back that quarter up your right sleeve. 
You have a lot of cheek with my men helping your 
men. Stop palming that half dollar in your left 
hand. Drop it in the purse. Is this the gratitude 
of the Zingara? And I used to sing songs about 
you. Now that ten cent piece between your fingers. 
No, I didn't say you could have it." I called the Il- 
lustrator and the two men got into the car. The 
self starter started. She stepped off the running 
board, her face contorted with rage. " Now we're 
going to leave you, leave you flat. And here's 
something for you to reflect upon: Where are the 
Rubes of yesterday? " 

We went on up the Valley, the occupants of the 
car admiring me hugely and not aware that I was as 
scared as possible. Perhaps all the valiant ones 
are really terrified, those who control howling 

-?- 138 -i- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

mobs, calm rebellious directors' meetings, or sub- 
due cooks on the eve of a dinner party. Perhaps 
(since I am wedging myself into that class) they're 
all the more valiant for entertaining fear. 

One passion merges itself into another, or pos- 
sibly all passions are the same with different 
names. I know that I found myself hungry as we 
approached Harrisonburg, hungry enough to eat a 
gypsy or anything these small towns along the way 
had to offer. It speaks well for the loveliness of 
the broad acres, the Appalachian range on our 
right, the Blue Ridge on our left, that we had run 
past the dinner hour, which is a very serious mat- 
ter in America if we wish to dine. But the villages 
after Middletown, where there is a fine inn, had 
little to offer beyond repeated notices of " ice cream 
and ham." 

Architecturally they are bereft of beauty. Mag- 
nificent Georgian houses set far back from the road 
are on either side, but they alone seemed to have 
escaped the devastation of Phil Sheridan. That is, 
I imagine the houses in the towns must have been 
destroyed, and the South struggling for a new life 
began to breathe, unfortunately, during a period 
when architecture was at its worst. New ones are 
going up now with mean doors, narrow windows, 
and meagre porches. If I had a million dollars I 
would apply some of it to the development of taste 

-e-139-i- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

among the manufacturers of stock sizes in window 
sashes, door frames, and general ornamentation. To 
build cheaply one must use these factory made ar- 
ticles, and if a new householder would only take the 
trouble, he could find in some of the work shops of 
the Middle West these essentials built with graceful 
proportions. (I am not getting anything for this 
— not even to Harrisonburg for luncheon. ) 

When we did get there the hotel dining room had 
been closed fifteen minutes and Gabriel's trump 
couldn't have opened it. I made a polite speech to 
the proprietor. I said he advertised as catering 
to motorists, that the arrival of this new vehicle of 
travel brought prosperity to a community, and it 
would create a pleasant feeling between host and 
guest if there could be some arrangement made to 
entertain us no matter how simply. And while it 
made no impression upon him I am glad I made 
this speech as it gives me the opportunity of re- 
peating it here. 

We all recognise that under the present mode of 
running a hotel, cooks rake their fires as the dining 
room door slams and there is no reason why they 
should linger. Now if a hotel could only employ a 
tweeny ! A tweeny is that little scrap of humanity 
who lives in English houses, and does the work " be- 
tween " the tasks not definitely belonging to the 
graded servants. If we had her the automobilist 

-h 140 -J- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

might be sure of a dish of tinned soup, cold meat, 
and bread and butter. Also the coffee might be 
" het up." Personally, I wouldn't entertain the 
idea for a moment if I were a girl, as tweenies ap- 
pear to do all the work of a vast establishment. But 
I am very sympathetically inclined today toward 
those who have to do housework. I shall not say 
why, but I shall never again wonder how it can 
take so long to wash up a few cups, nor will I let 
the new one coming in wait until Saturday just be- 
cause Friday means " short stay." 

A friendly bell boy who mistook the chauffeur 
for the owner, directed us to Friddle's restaurant, 
whispering that it was all just as well. And it 
turned out to be so, for Mr. Friddle sat on a high 
stool and entertained us as we ate, reading out bits 
from the Harrisonburg paper. There was a troupe 
in town. One of them had had a dollar " frisked " 
from him by a beautiful gypsy and couldn't get it 
back. This put me in a glow of satisfaction and I 
implored him to read on. 

There was a great deal about the troupe in the 
paper. They were advertising for chorus girls. 
We asked him if he didn't think the company would 
use this home talent only for the week as a method 
of bringing their friends to see the performance 
and he showed by his shocked negative that he was 
not alive to the advertising schemes of managers. 

-f- 141 •+- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

He even read to us that on the last evening of the 
show two of the company, Miss Pearl Morella and 
Mr. Arturo Smithson would wed on the stage of 
the opera house and the entire audience would be 
invited to remain. It was a romance of a year's 
standing. They would appear every night before 
the marriage in their accustomed roles. He was 
a nice young man, so pleased that Miss Pearl was 
to become Mrs. Smithson that I hadn't the heart 
to suggest they got married the last night in every 
town with the audience invited to remain. But I 
was glad that Mr. Friddle and his silver hadn't 
encountered that girl of the Romany Rye. 

The industrious motor bound for Warm or Hot 
Springs makes the run from Winchester to Staun- 
ton and from there crosses the mountains to the 
springs in a day. But as long as we grasshopper 
ourselves through life I don't suppose we will ever 
make any time, or hay, or anything to keep one 
alive when one grows old. It was late in the after- 
noon as we neared Staunton. We had avoided an 
alluring advertisement to visit grottoes at the left 
on a road all " McAdam," but we had stopped to 
photograph apple trees with small boys under them 
and " Toby with Blue Ridge in Distance," and a 
beautiful old red brick house which would have 
done for Elsie Dinsmore except that there were 
chickens in the front yard. 

-hU2-i- 




THE IVY-CLAD TOW KR OF TRINITY CHURCH, STAUNTON 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

As we went up the ninety-four miles of this mag- 
nificent pike I grew very uneasy over finding — ever 
— anything better than Elsie's Roselands on ac- 
count of these chickens and, in some instances, pigs. 
Yet it has occurred to me that Elsie's yard may 
have had chickens and pigs, only they were never 
spoken of. Possibly these homely creatures may 
be part of the equipment of a real old Southern 
place. Personally I would not object to pigs as 
cute as these. Their colours were neatly halved like 
little boys in black trousers and white shirts. It is 
only when they grow old they lose their charm, just 
hke men and we have to accept them all the same. 
There was a stern air about Staunton, rather, just 
before it. Boys in grey uniforms saluted us vigor- 
ously, trying to hide their school books as they 
marched by in military order. This is the neighbour- 
hood of good schools. Indeed the finest buildings 
along the run were for schools, newly built, of ex- 
cellent architecture and full of heads with bows of 
ribbon on them, for we could see just so much and 
the little girls could see even less. 

Poor mites ! Except for the Child Wonder back 
in Winchester, a school is a place of torture no mat- 
ter how you dress it up. One can be in uniform, 
or under the Gary plan or living the carefree ex- 
istence of the Montessori system, but when one has 
to be at a certain place a certain time life is pretty 

-»-143-J- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

hard. " You are naturally prejudiced," says the Il- 
lustrator. He knows of that shameful effort of 
mine to pass in arithmetic when with a hundred for 
the topmost mark, I received two. I have never 
learned what I got right. 

But here is Staunton. " Just get there anyway," 

advises W . We go down a hill. The car is 

looking very pretty. The chauffeur has thrust 
sprays of the lovely pink tree into the pockets, and 

it was I who asked to have the top down. W 

stared at me bewildered, knowing that I had no um- 
brella in case of little whirls of rain. Still I, too, 
am beginning to like to " see up " as he puts it. I 
suppose as we are growing old together we are be- 
ginning to think alike, and while it would be much 
better for the world if he would only think as I do, 
failing in this I follow in his mental footsteps. 

We diverge occasionally. When we reached the 
hotel he thought I should not go in and ask the clerk 
the name of the pink flower, whereas I thought an 
armful of it might screen Toby. We had heard 
of fierce anti-dog rules. He was right. The clerk 
as he leaned over to examine the corolla or whatever 
the thing is, spied our dear little friend hiding se- 
renely on the lee side of the desk far away from 
storms. So we were turned away, finding shelter 
in the hostelry where President Wilson always 
stops. 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

I went out into the streets for historical pur- 
poses. The mahogany was quite expensive and 
very httle of it. But I particularly wanted one of 
those old settees of painted wood which we found 
on the porches. They were not in the shops, and I 
feared to ask a Southern householder about the pos- 
sibility of her disposing of them, for she might burst 
into tears or flames, and I should be either 
quenched or incinerated. 

However there was Rollo College to distract me. 
A Staunton gentleman and I talked a long time on 
the hill wondering if the Rollo books could have 
come from the school. One need never be afraid 
to jest with a Southern gentleman. He thought I 
was staying on to talk because I liked him but it 
was really on account of my dismal room. Yet I 
came home — home, I have to call it — with a bottle 
of gasoline bought at a pharmacy. A woman can 
travel perilously near gallons of gasoline yet cannot 
get a pint for her hair. The young man who waited 
on me ran to open the door. It was pitiful to hear 
me down there responding to attentions which a 
Southern woman would accept as a matter of 
course. " Oh, thank you — you're very kind — much 
obliged, I am sure — don't trouble — not at all," I go 
chattering up the street. 

Night came, a chilly rainy night. The windows 
were all open in my bare room when the lUustra- 

-♦•145 -J- 



THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AND A SHAMPOO 

tor came in. He had been out " siccing " Toby on 
the hotel opposite. My hair was over my shoulders, 
smelling horribly. My cleaned hat was on the win- 
dow sill. My coat collars were redolent of gasoline. 

" What," demanded he, " are you doing in this 
cold?" 

" I am getting ready for Hot Springs," I re- 
plied. 



146 



CHAPTER VIII 

And Here We Figure Largely as a Circus, Then 

Fold Our Tents and Steal into Muddy, 

Mountainous Adventuring 

We have always found it as difficult to leave a 
town as to reach it, but our efforts to quit Staun- 
ton were unusually retarded by a combination of 
circus and art student. The art student came first, 
urged on, I fancy, by the chauffeur who had met 
him the night before and had added to his artistic 
development by treating him to a moving picture 
show. 

He brought his sketches to the hotel which was 
very hard on the Illustrator, as he wanted to say 
they were good yet found them not promising. He 
skated about it kindly. It is impossible to tell the 
blunt truth, anyway, to one of artistic endeavour — 
if not of talent. You are simply not believed. 
There are two attributes in the student who has a 
leaning toward the arts. He is highly sensitive, 
yet at the same time his heart is invulnerable to 
criticism. One need not put this down as vanity. 
I think this pride in himself, in his work, is clearly 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

created to offset the sufferings that most of the 
artists go through before the door of fame is 
opened. And if it is never opened, this compensat- 
ing quaHty offsets the grief, translating the lack 
of recognition into the opposition of ignorance or 
jealousy. 

It is amazing what an art student will suffer to 
gain an education when such indifferent attempts 
are made to learn a trade. If this bright boy in 
Staunton would bend one half of his heroic ef- 
forts to save money for the mastery of a business 
we might find his name in big letters the next time 
we went up the Valley. But what's the use? They 
said that to us once — ^to the Illustrator and myself 
— and we didn't listen. 

W- took him out for a drive to see how he felt 

about composition while he sketched an old church, 
and Toby and I started off to secure luncheon for 
the sixty-four villageless miles across the moun- 
tains. The chicken and ham sandwiches would 
probably have grown into a very successful order 
had not the proprietor of the cafe suddenly burst 
at me with: " Will you tell me, ma'am, what that 
kind of a dog is good for? " And this so embar- 
rassed both Toby and me that we rushed out of the 
establishment, for he knows as well as I do that 
he is not good for anything except to be loved and 
to love us. And that is the real reason there wasn't 

-J- 148 -J- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

any pie or root beer or crackers and cheese or 
green bananas when it came time to eat. 

I understand now that the restaurateur mistook 
our position in life — he was as the Httle boys in 
Frederick who had expressed themselves more 
boldly concerning Toby's profession. An old col- 
oured woman outside the door elucidated the situa- 
tion slightly by wanting to know if "he slep in de 
caige," but even then I didn't hitch up Toby with 
the event occasioning the gala air of the streets. It 
was near the Court House that we watched a long 
file of soberly clad citizens pass by. I stood among 
the loafers admiring the dignity of what I took to 
be the makers of our laws and those who sit in 
judgment on us. Eager to pay a compliment to 
the citizens of Staunton I remarked upon their 
excellent appearance. 

" Court and jury? " I questioned politely. 

" No, ma'am," replied the loafer. " That's the 
insane asylum going to the circus." 

We left the town shortly afterwards with our 
position in life firmly established. Giving Toby 
this preliminary parade sowed the wind, our head- 
ing the procession reaped the whirlwind. We had 
not intended to head the procession. Our car had 
started to turn from the side street where the hotel 
stood into the main thoroughfare before we appre- 
ciated that the traffic had ceased and that the great 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

red and gold band wagon had already passed. 
There was a hiatus between this band wagon and 
the elephants, and the ever courteous Southern 
policeman seeing us with our baggage strapped on, 
wished to speed our departure by slipping us into 
this space. 

When we were once in we could not get out. I 
won't say that Toby and I cared to get out. This 
circus idea had been forced upon us and we ac- 
cepted it, but the Illustrator's face was pitiful. 

" Are we going to make monkeys of ourselves 
all our lives?" he asked me, the perspiration roll- 
ing down his face. 

" Not monkeys," I shouted, for the band had 
struck up. " They think we're the proprietors. 
The monkeys are in the wagons. We really ought 
to be throwing out handbills." 

" Do I look like the proprietor of a circus? " 
he roared back as coldly as one can roar. 

He had on a green plaid overcoat with a yellow 
leather lining. " Yes, you do," I was obliged to 
confess. 

"Oh, my Lord! When can we turn off ? " 

It was a long block. The band blared, the ele- 
phants swung their trunks and the camels coughed. 
Staunton thick along the wayside stared at us re- 
spectfully, and Toby leaning with studied ease on 
his elbow, stared at them. I sat back luxuriously, 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

and since W had his eyes shut, bowed to the 

people. The dream of my early life had been real- 
ised — all but the spangles. 

It was very dull after this to go up the hill toward 
such a respectable place as Churchville, and we 
were in no hurry to reach it for the good road ended 
there as even a hotel proprietor is forced to admit. 
A jolly old lady took our toll just outside of Staun- 
ton. She said she'd rather starve than toll a road 
which wasn't worth the money, but she wanted us 
to know that her tax on us endured only to Church- 
ville. There is no macadam encouragement to at- 
tend divine services in the town if you come from 
the mountains, and it speaks well for the devotion 
of the people that they have established so many 
houses of worship at this point. This was a great 
Indian country, yet they met in spite of the hostile 
natives. Danger seems to give a fillip to religion, 
and it might be a good idea in the lax present- 
day worshipping to more than hint that there 
are Indians behind every lamp post on Fifth 
Avenue. 

Mud, the modern excuse in the mountains, seems 
to have no effect upon them. They just splash 
along in their little motor cars as though it were a 
pleasure and pleasure lay ahead of them. Indeed I 
have about come to the conclusion that we are the 
" short sports " concerning motoring, not the aver- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

age American who travels widely by automobile in 
his country. Possibly it is because ("repeating" 
here) they know nothing better, but we found the 
great motor cars arriving at Hot Springs with their 
full equipment of ropes, block, and tackle, what- 
you-will for pulling themselves out of the mud and 
feeling no particular alarm that the going was poor. 

And there was mud. To be sure we were cross- 
ing the mountains after the hardest rains the coun- 
try had known for years, and in a renewed down- 
pour which began promptly with the already ooz- 
ing clay. I understand that the road is quite pass- 
able in dry weather and it is possible at all times. 
The grading is much better than that of the Green 
Mountains, and part of it was engineered by 
Claude Crozet who, after Napoleon's downfall, 
came to Virginia, and was appointed state engineer. 
It is rather sad to see a Napoleonic road making 
so poor an appearance, like a fine mind which has 
been denied cultivation. And I am sure a few thou- 
sand dollars' worth of blue stone would largely 
overcome the difficulties of travel. 

I never admired blue stone as I did on this South- 
ern trip. One could see patches of it far ahead on 
the hills, rendered pallid by the wet yellow clay 
which would preface and follow it. The water rolls 
off it like a base prevarication off my lips when I 
grow sympathetic — an admirable stone ! 

-M52-H 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

We stopped at Jenning's Gap to take a picture 
because Jenning's Gap looked as it should. How 
splendidly fitting are mountain names in Virginia : 
Lone Fountain, Windy Cove, Panther Gap, Cow- 
pasture River. And the thing that surprised me 
most about the Virginia Mountains was their look- 
ing as I had expected them to look. There was 
the same spare growth, yellow roads, rock forma- 
tions, the women working over big kettles in front 
of their log houses, the tall lank men, the many 
lean curs — all as I had imagined it. This correct 
mental vision must have come from reading of 
mountain life, and while I frequently skip descrip- 
tion (as you are probably doing now) one can't 
avoid entirely forming an impression of a true 
background if the foreground — the he-saids and the 
she-saids — is equally true. 

A big fellow at Jenning's Gap advised us to ask 
continually about the rivers we must ford, as the 
streams were quite high and we might have to make 
a detour. But we stopped to talk with a fire war- 
den as we neared one danger spot further on in the 
mountains, and he said the cars could get through 
always if they would go into low sjDced and not do 
too much splashing. It almost compensated for 
bad going, this stopping along the way to advise or 
be advised. We can all do so well without one an- 
other when our ways in life are easy. Perhaps it is 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

a compensation for our miseries that we get this 
excitement from hazardous, though uncomfortable 
experiences. 

After we had forded the two rivers that were 
seriously deep we met a large blue limousine at the 
side of the road waiting for the occupants to eat 
their luncheon out of a basket vulgarly capacious. 
I was hoping something would distract the Illustra- 
tor's attention from the lavish display, and it was 
held by the approach of their chauffeur. He had 
just been told by a car ahead of us marked Tour- 
ing Information that it would be impossible for his 
car to ford the streams. As we had just crossed 
them he was much relieved, and we all wondered 
how Touring Information had managed them it- 
self if the thing couldn't be done. I did not know 
how largely this car so marked was to enter into my 
day, but its lively fancy appealed to me even as 

W and the limousine with its mouth full of 

pate de foie gras (figuratively speaking) depre- 
cated sensationalism. 

However, I agreed heartily with anything that 

W said after we had left them, with the view 

of blotting out the memory of the pate pasted on 
the crisp biscuit which they had been champing. 
" Kind hearts are more than crackerettes," was a 
plank in my platform. It might have worked had 
not we suddenly come upon Touring Information 

-J- 154 -^- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

in front of the village store at Deerfield nibbling 
away at the best the shelves had to offer. 

Touring Information was the oldest car in the 
world containing two of the youngest inhabitants 
of the globe. They were stamped bride and groom 
without the addition of a white bow of ribbon any- 
where upon the ancient rigging. " How do you 
like it? " called the bridegroom to us cheerily as we 
peeped at them through the rain. 

" Fierce," answered my consort. We were past 
them in a trice, but I was not past the Illustrator. 
" Fierce," he repeated, turning to me, " fierce that 
every one should be eating and we have only three 
sandwiches. Did you see that young couple, even 
poorer than we are, having a nice lunch? " 

" Nice to them," I returned, " but it wouldn't 
be nice to us." 

"Why not?" 

Why not indeed! Why should we not be born 
ugly babies and grow more beautiful as we grow 
older ! Why do om' dispositions and digestions not 
improve as knowledge grows in the control of them! 
Why should youth be the sauce to make palatable 
the disagreeable instead of old age, which is rich 
in a philosophy only to be acquired by growth. 
I suppose the sense of taste is the single one that 
does not wither and leave us, and out of gratitude 
we " old 'uns " feel that it should be catered to. 

-^155-^- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

I was ready for the Illustrator with blandish- 
ments. I said that the three sandwiches were for 
stop gaps, not for luncheon. I had thought it 
would be pleasant to dine with some of the moun- 
tain people. 

" Dine with 'em? " he repeated, just as though 
he did not know about Southern hospitality. 

" Certainly. You choose a house where you want 
to eat and I'll go in and arrange it." 

With a promptness that was disconcerting he 
picked out the one we were going by. It was a 
pretty little house but he gave me no chance to pre- 
pare a speech. An old man came down the path 
with that detached look in his eyes which took small 
interest in food. He might have been a bride- 
groom, and he shook his head when I importuned 
him. 

'* You're hyar with your w'ite dawg, and I'm 
hyar with my black dawg. We live alone, 
leadin' a dawg's life, so I cain't give you nothin' 
decent." 

" Couldn't you manage six eggs? " I pressed, as 
though he were a prize hen. 

But he couldn't. He could only advise us to go 
on to the big farm house where they would do the 
right thing by folks that were hungry. I suppose 

W was looking back at me but I kept my eyes 

concentrated on the view the isinglass windows 

-f-156+- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

afforded. His appearance is excellent, but there 
is no use in staring at the man all the time. 

I had my speech ready at the next house — it 
was something about strangers and kindness of the 
road. A fine large woman with her hair over her 
shoulders came out on the side porch and " My 
goodness," I said instead, " you're washing your 
hair. I did mine last night." 

We became as thick as thieves as I hung over the 
gate. " I put ammonia in the water," she said, 
" and it makes my hair so fluffy I can't do anything 
with it." 

" For days I can't do anything with mine either." 

" Ahem," said W from the car. 

Millie Elizabeth, the pretty girl who helped, had, 
also, washed her hair, but they both put on caps, 
and, since it was long past the dinner hour, started 
up the kitchen fire for biscuit. I went into the liv- 
ing room with the two little girls, Mary Susan and 
Annie Harriet. Annie Harriet had never liked her 
middle name so she had changed it from " Annie 
Haih-yet," as she pronounced it, to " Annie 
Rooney." She had heard the song somewhere and 
now it was written down in all her school books as 
" Annie Runie." Their mother said there had been 
a " right smart discussion " at the school, for 
teacher thought it was spelled " Runey." I sang 
the song as well as I could to Mary Susan and An- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

nie Haih-yet while the rain poured down outside, 
and the Illustrator hung out of the car talking to 
Touring Information, which was through its lunch 
and heading for Hot Springs. 

I told them how I had gone to the theatre with a 
beau when I was a young girl and heard Bessie 

? Bessie ? the name has left me. " Are 

we so soon forgotten, then?" said old Rip Van 
Winkle. I heard her sing it for the first time. 
And I had picked out the air with one finger on the 
piano when I reached home, awaking an irate and 
unmusical family. 

Annie Haih-yet, entertaining me in turn, told 
me that Mary Susan never ate anything at all — 
"Maw jes nachally don't know what to do aboot 
it." Mary Susan enjoyed this, singling out, re- 
peating mournfully " Not a mite, not a mite." 

She took little interest in life but was very gentle 
and sweet (as are few grown up invalids) save when 
a small boy appeared with a tin pail, when she said 
with considerable force: " Thar's thet mean Paul 
Simmons comin' hyar for a settin' of eggs." Then 
she looked again. " No, he's ben hyar. He ain't a 
swingin' the pail." 

It was very droll to chatter with these children 
of nine and eleven, for they had no talk of dolls 
and playthings. They looked from out the win- 
dows to gossip of the doings of the road just as all 




I 



^- 






x\ 



THE HOTEL AT HoT SIM^IXOS— ^VIDE-^MXGED AND 
WARM IX COLOUR 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

gro^vn ups do, no matter the locality, who live in 
the country. I asked them if they didn't each have 
little tasks to perform but they had nothing at all 
to do, no long seams to labour over, no beds to make. 
It was nice to see how JNIary Susan and Annie 
Haih-yet quieted down when we were all ushered 
into the bright dining room. I didn't hear a word 
out of them beyond one ecstatic exclamation from 
Annie as she discovered Toby: " Looks like a little 
ole wite hawg," she said. 

IVIillie Elizabeth passed the excellent dishes while 
our hostess sat at one side and poured the coffee. 
She and the Illustrator discovered that they were 
in some dim way kin to each other, which was mad- 
dening to me as I could have been related to her if 
I had only thought of it first. However, I spoke 
of my ancestors coming from Holland and settling 
in Virginia, which, after being pressed I was 
obliged to admit was West Virginia. I do not talk 
about my Virginia ancestors as much as I once did. 
As a young girl I had the fever very keenly and I 
remember asking an old family friend if these good 
Dutchmen had not held large plantations. " No," 
he drawled with the mistaken humour of those in 
their nonage, " they were all slave drivers." But 
of course I did not tell that to my hostess. 

It was hard to get away. We were all having a 
pleasant time except Toby, who after the white 

-h 159 -J-. 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

hog epithet was rendered even less spirited by a 
tortoise-shell cat. He was thoroughly cowed — if a 
dog can be cowed by a cat — and kept asking me 
" Where was Hot Springs at? " as a gentle reminder. 

He might well ask. One could not believe it pos- 
sible that a cluster of fashionable hotels lay any- 
where in these wilds. The road beyond was ad- 
mitted by our hostess to be " right slick," and there 
were two passes to cross as yet. When we pre- 
pared to leave I asked if she did not care to hang up 
a shingle as the only eating place between Staunton 
and the Springs and let me mention her name, but 
she said she was heavy on her feet and might not 
be able to serve the guests if Millie Elizabeth should 
go away. So I hope that all who read this will take 
a great many sandwiches and leave her alone. She 
said something else as I exclaimed over the modest 
sum for her trouble and the outlay. It was so 
charming in her that I hope no one will notice that 
it was also charming about us. " Think what you 
gave us of your table," I said. 

*' Think what you gave me of yourselves," she 
replied. 

This — and the food — made W very young 

again and he started after Touring Information 
with the incentive that a pacemaker always gives. 

I learned from him that the car was not giving 
information (beyond what was wrong about the 

-J- 160 -i- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

fords) , but getting it. The two young hearts were 
spending their honeymoon sign-posting the best 
way to Hot Springs for the automobile club of a 
large city. The back of the tonneau was full of 
neat wooden placards with the names of the town 
painted thereon. " Danger " in red, arrows with 
Hot Springs on them, like the banner of Excelsior, 
and band boxes for milady's hats. 

As their honeymoon was just as important as 
sign-posting a road already very decently marked, 
we did not deplore his lack of activity in the getting 
out and nailing up of directions. Yet we found 
some evidences of effort on the part of the young 
man. The road was indeed " right slick." We had 
not put on our chains until leaving the farm house 
and we kept pretty well out of the ruts by careful 
driving. But it was thrilling to see the tracks of 
the lovers ahead of us. They were slewing, slip- 
ping, and bouncing over their course, and at one 
point they had stopped a while. This was where 
we found the sign-posts, not on the trees but in a 
mud hole. " Winchester 22 mi." had served for 
the right wheel; " Sound klaxon," badly splintered 
yet looking up at us as one whose cause is just, had 
helped the left wheel of the happy pair. 

There was an insouciance about the use of these 
carefully prepared and timely hints which bred in 
me a desire to know better the gay wreckers. Our 

-i-161-i- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

eyes were fastened to the marks of their tires in 
the clay. We were growing warmer. Toby grew 
very excited and thought it was a game. " In- 
dians ! " he exclaimed, leaping out in the mud. He 
was marched sternly back, but returned a clay dog 
with a new and terrible inclination to sit upon my 
chest, his fore feet planted on the Illustrator's back. 
This mode of savage warfare so obscured my vis- 
ion that I did not see Touring Information until 
we had run alongside it. It had stopped completely 
on a steep hill. 

The bridegroom greeted us blithely : " I think 
we're out of gasoline," was his preface as un- 
concerned as if the carburetor had drunk its last 
drop before a garage. We were ready to spare 
him what we could, but he found out, after splitting 
up " To White Sulphur Springs " and using it to 
measure by, that the engine had stopped only be- 
cause it was hot and wished to rest. 

" I don't know what I'd do without a hatchet," 
the young man had said chopping away merrily. 
" I'd rather be without extra tires than a hatchet 
on a long trip. Be sure the brake is set, dear heart." 

Dear heart set the brake. She was a very beau- 
tiful girl with her husband's rain coat on no doubt, 
as he had none, her equipment as a motorist ending 
there but continuing as a bride, for she wore pink 
silk stockings and thin slippers. 

-J-162+- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

" Have to watch this car," said he, beginning to 
crank it with no results. " It ran down hill yes- 
terday and stood up on end, its nose in the ditch — 
looked perfectly ridiculous. Dangerous? — well 
perhaps. She wasn't in the car." 

Some mules had righted the car, he told us. And 
then between efforts at cranking and getting his 
breath we spoke of the courtesy of the mountain 
roads. It was not the motors which turned out for 
us, but the wagons, the drivers with many head of 
cattle, the sheep herder and the men with strings 
of colts. The spirit of resentment that is occasion- 
ally met with in the Northern farmer is not found 
among the mountain people. It would seem that 
those who are remote from the railway have a sense 
of camaraderie for the fellow travelling the same 
course. I can't say that I've noticed it on a jour- 
ney by train. 

The mud, with the landscape, grew wilder and 
wilder. Om' two cars took turn ahead, the leader 
waiting now and then for the other to catch up. 
We were rather proud that we held to the road so 
well and hesitated only momentarily in the deep 
holes. It makes me feel very sorry for an engine 
straining to do its level best, and I am impatient 
when they are shut up in a garage after a hard 
day's run without any appreciative oil or grease 

-H-163-«- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

or kerosene in the cylinders. One might as well let 
a horse go supperless to bed. 

Touring Information may have tried to do its 
level best, but it was only at its best on the level. 
Yet we managed the ascents, stopping to breathe 
when we reached the summit of Warm Springs 
Mountain. The rain had ceased, it was almost 
sunset and if we hadn't been so cold the view would 
have been most engaging. There is nothing that 
will take the beauty out of a view more thoroughly 
than a chill in the marrow of one's bones. The 
little bride's lips were blue, but she had taken off 
her rain coat and was going to make the descent 
into Hot Springs looking as a bride should if she 
froze to death. After a fierce internal admonition 
of myself to be generous I brought out our cher- 
ished flask, and having given a little lecture before- 
hand on the folly of a chauffeur drinking I offered 
them the stimulant. The bridegroom had no 
trouble with his chauffeur conscience but the bride 
had to be coaxed: 

" Take some, honey, you look so white." 

"Ugh! Will it burn?" 

" That's what it is for," I intervened snappily. 

" Take a big drink, honey dear." 

(" My whiskey," I thought.) 

" Will it taste like that sherry I had? " 

" It will taste worse," I said firmly. If she 
-+• 164 -e- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

really didn't want the whiskey it was foolish to 
urge it ; but he was insistent. 

" Take a big swallow, darling, take two big 
swallows." 

" Yes, do," from me. I would see it through, but 
it was hard. Why should she be so young and 
pretty and have all the stimulant too? 

To be fair to her she was only coaxed into three 
swallows which probably " saved her " as he told me 
gratefully. At any rate everything grew very rosy 
which came — I hope — from the afterglow of the 
sunset. The young couple agreed that it was the 
best part of the day — " everything pink when you 
think it's all over." And while we did not wish to 
confuse them with a personal application of this ex- 
pression, W and I smiled at each other under- 

standingly for we decrepit ones know that the " af- 
terglow " is the best part of life as well, and they 
will have to wait a long, long time, through years 
of doubtful days and cold grey evenings before 
they find it out. 

There is a love of a toll-gate at the summit, pre- 
sided over by an old man who ran to take down 
the coats hanging on the long porch before we made 
a photograph. He wanted the place to look nice, 
he said. He had always hoped some one would care 
to take it, but they had ever been in a hurry to get 
to the Springs. This story has a bad ending, as it 

-+• 165 -J- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

was too late in the day for a successful picture, and 
it is up to any of you travelling that way to change 
the finis by taking a snap shot of the house and 
sending it to him. His name is William D. Rowe 
and he goes down the steep mountain every day for 
chance letters. So you must mail it to Warm 
Springs, Virginia. Now do this for Mr. Rowe who 
may still be tramping wearily up and down for a 
paper view of the thing he sees every day of his 
life. 

" Hot," to adopt the parlance of the Southerners, 
lies seven miles beyond " Warm," and we might 
have spent the night there, for the hotel was very 
comfortably nestling at the foot of the mountain, 
but it was not yet open. So we went on, taking 
the right hand of a choice of ways at a fork as the 
mark read " Both roads to Hot Springs." Noth- 
ing could be more stupid than this sign, for the 
road at the left we learned afterward is macadam, 
and the one we had chosen was of mud so dire that, 
just within sight of home, we were almost mired 
for the first time. We could look down from a 
height to see the young couple screaming along 
happily on the parallel macadam instead of sign- 
posting the only fork vital to the motorist, and 
though we afterwards managed to reach the easy 
going, the wallowing had slapped on the last dab of 
clay needful to encake completely our car. Toby, 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

as I have said, was already a clay dog, and 
owing to his gyrations acquired since he became 
firmly of the circus I was wearing a clay effect 
on my chest like a misapplied antiphlogistine 
poultice. 

In this manner we approached the famous Home- 
stead Hotel, as wide winged as an aeroplane, and 
so warm in colour that one felt from afar the wel- 
coming rays of an unaffected hospitality. Despite 
our dirt we hoped that we might yet be allowed to 
rest our weary heads there. That we made our 
entry in the most indirect fashion was due to an 
idiosyncrasy of the Illustrator. 

It has always been his idea, an idea entirely his 
own, and deepened into a belief without encourage- 
ment, that a hotel possesses an automobile entrance. 
That somewhere built into a modest nook is a porte 
cochere under which we roll and there denude the 
car of its baggage, avoiding the cold gaze of clean 
guests rocking in rocking chairs. For years he 
has gone in circles around great inns looking for 
this sheltered coach door of his dreams. He had 
even wished to back up an alley in Staunton and 
take off our bags at the bar of the hotel which had 
excluded Mr. Toby. Therefore it was not surpris- 
ing to find him motoring past the impressive front 
and bringing up at the rear of the hotel before a 
collection of doors without any particular character 

-*-167-H- 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

save that they were the kind servants went in and 
out of. 

" Why are we stopping here? " I demanded. 

" Because it is the automobile entrance," he an- 
swered firmly. 

" My dear " — acidly — " these are the kitchens." 

" These are the automobile entrance " He 

was very tired. 

We waited. I was counting to control myself 
and he may have been doing this also, for the silence 
was terrific. It was unfortunate that our instinct 
would lead us to the kitchen door instead of cor- 
rectly carrying us in a great sweep before the rock- 
ing chairs. After a space of time a darky came out 
of one of the automobile entrances and upheld me 
in my contention. It was the chauffeur who had 
asked, as W and I were engaged with numbers. 

" Then," said the Illustrator triumphantly, as 
though it was what he had wanted all along, " we 
will turn around and go there. Though I can't un- 
derstand why they don't have " 

He never finished the sentence — which was re- 
dundant anyway. Nor did we turn around. The 
mud had done its work. Whereas Galatea grew 
from clay to flesh we had turned from flesh to clay. 
It had entered the soul of us: it had plastered the 
steering gear. With a great deal of over-humour 
considering the situation our chauffeur rose to 



WE FIGURE LARGELY AS A CIRCUS 

an unusual height. " Our name," he said, " is 
mud." 

It was Toby and I who walked around to the 
front entrance and tracked over the pale green car- 
pet to the desk. The guests were coming down 
to dinner. A clean and combed West Highlander 
was going elegantly along on a leash. The two dogs 
met — they clinched. The din was fearful. The 
erstwhile clean terrier was pulled away. I pre- 
sented one more good reason for a refusal to admit 
us as I turned to the clerk. " I am at the kitchen 
door," I gasped incoherently. 

The clerk was wonderfully understanding. "I'll 
send the porters. It's all right, madam. A boy 
will take you to your rooms." 

I could have put my head down on his shoulder 
and burst into tears. 



169 



CHAPTER IX 

All About Fashionable Life, with Some Ordinary 
Tears, Theories, and a Wreck, if You Please 

By the morning of the second day in Hot Springs, 
so thoroughly was I relaxed, there was no use 
searching for the date of the month in the calen- 
dar (provided I could find the calendar) as I didn't 
know the day of the week. I was as one who 
awakes from a heavy sleep forgetting his name or 
his whereabouts, and terrified at the block of vague 
light which turns out to be the window. It is as 
though the spirit has gone wandering and is late 
getting back into the suddenly waking body. 

The best I could do was to ask for today's paper, 
very insistent upon its being " today's," and, fixing 
on the top liner, set my mental watch by it. We 
seemed to be such a vast distance from Washing- 
ton it was surprising to find how early the morn- 
ing papers arrived. I suppose all of the guests had 
come to Hot Springs for complete relaxation, yet 
they continued avid of news. The long corridors 
and the wide porches were lined with men and 
women scanning the columns. 

-J- 170 -i- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

There is not so much quick turning from the first 
sheet to those pages in lighter vein as there was be- 
fore the war. Yet I wonder if others reading the 
daily reports of the carnage do as I do : let the eyes 
stray from the account of misery for an instant to 
something alongside of almost no import; an item 
concerning the killing of a mother-in-law whom we 
do not know, or an advertisement in which we have 
no interest. I find that I must do this, although I 
return to the awful truth after the momentary re- 
lief. I suppose it is one of the ways for us to keep 
our balance. 

Try not to be bored with this matter seemingly 
extraneous to Hot Springs. It is a point in favour 
of just such great hotels as those in the Valley of 
healing waters. The mild playing here makes one 
gasp when one reviews the strife of a large part of 
the globe at present. But it has its place — it is 
for balance. It is to get away for a little that one 
can go back fortified to endure more sorrow. The 
great hotel is as the advertisement in the next 
column. 

It is unfair to rail at the very rich who patronise 
these places, for it is among the moneyed class and 
among people of culture that the activities toward 
the easing of many nations have gone on unceas- 
ingly. There is little knitting of stomach bands, 
helmets, and socks in public any more. Regular 

-»- 171 -^- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

classes have been organised for that now. The 
women meet regularly — and they do meet — to con- 
tinue a sober charity robbed of all emotionalism. 

Granted that there are three classes in the United 
States, I should say that the very rich and the very 
poor are doing their share — and a little more. It 
is the comfortably off who, from my observance, are 
concerning themselves least in a suffering so far 
removed that their imaginations do not stimulate 
them to continual sacrifice. The rich know these 
countries and pay an unceasing tribute to the 
beauty the Old World has afforded them. The poor 
know them, too — not the pleasures but the miseries. 
They come from them, their people are on the other 
side, and with a generosity which is stupefying they 
give and give and give. 

Ergo — at Hot Springs I did not reach the point 
to which I generally ascend — or descend — at a 
fashionable resort. I did not wish to rise in the 
midst of a plenteous meal and scream to the as- 
sembled multitude what Marie Antoinette cried to 
her tormentors: "You are all scally-wags." No, 
" vous-etes tous des scelerats" was not uttered even 

in our rooms, which was a great relief to W , 

who watches anxiously for this period of rebellion. 

He was perfectly at home and happy. His Aunt 
Mary Ann and her family had always come from 
their old place in Norfolk to make the cure in other 

-i-172-J- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

days, and it was right that he should be there, if not 
making the cure at least making pictures. Her 
visits were of the long ago when the original Home- 
stead was standing, not this huge affair of five hun- 
dred guest rooms, seven hundred fifty employees, 
and thousands of acres of cultivated ground. 

One is glad that she came, and that the South- 
erners still take the waters. It may be their cheery 
and delightful presence which avoids that mouldy 
air of reserve characterising some of our Northern 
country inns. Drinking the waters is, I fancy, a 
fashion that went out with hoop skirts and has not 
returned with them. But it is there to be drunk, or 
to be boiled in, or to have hurled at you by enthusi- 
astic attendants through the medium of a hose. 
Europeans go to the cures as they keep Lent and, 
while they can never give up eating, they abandon 
themselves to baths alarming in their frequency. 
Bathing is not as foreign to us as complete rest, so 
I think the Springs serve as well on the golf course 
as in the thermal establishment. 

There is a fine swimming pool in this building, 
largely patronised when we visited it by darling 
little girls who were afraid to go down the chute 
yet wanted to very much. "Is it so terrible?" 
asked one mite after her sister had roaringly de- 
scended. Still she was mad to accomplish the feat 
and finally did — an instinctive adventuress. Per- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

haps we women are all instinctive adventuresses, 
and fear, moral or physical, is our only leash. 

I am talking a great deal about water. It col- 
oured my first day at the Homestead, or I had bet- 
ter say — and bitterly — discoloured it. As the hours 
passed and I continued to scrub the clay off of 
Toby, shivering in a beautiful tub, it occurred to 
me that we had better choose the more modest 
hotels in the future. Here I was immuned in a 
bathroom, lathering Toby so that he could look as 
well as that other dog had looked (before they 
clinched) and by the time he was dry we would 
be moving on. It was a very foolish method of 
passing a most expensive day. From the next room 

W read to me bits of information concerning 

the advantages of Hot Springs. He thought I 
ought to enjoy some of them. 

" What, for instance," I growled, putting Toby 
through the fifth rinsing. 

" Well," said he, hunting out something at ran- 
dom to quiet the approaching storm, " there are 
mud baths." 

" Oh, goody," said Toby after that. " She ain't 
goin' to wash me no more." 

The Illustrator took up the work where I left 
off, going through a severe towelling process in 
preference to the gruelling we read of in the courts. 
Then we sat down at the wide windows to enjoy the 

-^ 174! -i- 



•■•V ' -iV - -- -* -v . „ 




THE GIANT HOSTELKV AT WHITE SLLl'HLK. J)KLRATI:LY 
SHADED IX A WOOD 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

golfers appearing and disappearing like the ships 
that " go on to their haven under the hill." The 
band just below us on the lawn began its concert, 
and brilliant-coloured ladies (I hope the printer 
will put a hyphen between brilliant and coloured) 
sat at little white tables placed about the green. 
There was nothing eaten or drunk at these tables, 
but the friendly board has a mission in life beyond 
the burden of comestibles. 

A circle of chairs is never provocative of good 
talk unless there is a table in the middle. In France 
when conversation was even more of an art than it 
is now they never rose at the end of a meal fearing 
to break the flow of thought with the flow of bowl. 
" Besides," as a young man said to me, a young 
man singularly devoid of thought, " it makes a 
place to hide your feet." Our table was on the 
other side the room yet we were feeling unusually 
gay, for one of the joys of married life is the doing 
away of all necessity to entertain. Then the band 
swung into something, something that I had heard 
before, away back somewhere — and I was no longer 
gay. The Illustrator accused me of crying and 
Toby moved up anxiously. " I've kept perfectly 
clean, Louise." 

It wasn't that. It was the pain of old music. 
We cannot analyse it at first. We feel the pain 
even before we hear the strain aright. Then it 

-J- 175 -h- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

comes back to us — the reason for this exquisite 
grief, and always we are very sad because once we 
were very happy. Why should not the recollection 
of a joy be joyous too! Do we wish to hold on 
forever to a condition that time itself would render 
miserable ? It would be like the fatigue of dancing 
an endless marathon, though to the finest music in 
the world. 

W gave up the question I propounded, 

along with a lot of others. It is Bjorkman, is it not, 
who speaks of "Life's refusal to explain itself"? 
Fortunately as new tears come from old joys, to 
such of us as know this, quick joy follows the quick 
tears. The nice coloured boy, Hancock, who had 

been assigned to valet W and give Toby his 

early morning exercise, came in to talk of ways and 
means of inducing the dog to leave the room with- 
out awaking his master. Hancock had the word for 
it: " I'll jes' ease him out," he said. 

" That's right," agreed W , " you ease him 

out." And with some such method he eased me out 
to drive about, forgetting old scores with new 
scenes. 

With the same sort of contrariness that brought 
us up before the kitchen door we drove first among 
the buildings given over to the thousand or so of 
blacks who form mainly the personnel of the vari- 
ous establishments. They were well cared for, with 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

stringent rules at each entrance as to the admission 
of visitors, and the whole village had more the at- 
mosphere of a military barracks than a great hotel 
scheme. 

I should think they would need a little court and 
jury all to themselves. A most dignified waiter was 
apportioned our table, who was as unbending as an 
English footman in his attitude toward us, but who 
showed a human side upon colliding with another 
servitor. To the watchful eye of the captain all 
was serene, but as the two circled about the serving 
tray behind me there were " rumours of war " if 
not actual conflict. 

" Lemme get at yu'," said one waiter, his face 
as expressionless as a custard pie. " Lemme get at 

yu." 

" Keep youah shirt on, bo, keep youah shirt on," 
rumbled the other while catering to an exceedingly 
fastidious young man who wanted the best and 
thought that he got it. 

From the abode of the humble our motor clung 
to the macadam which took us — nearly — to Warm 
Springs, One of our best friends who comes here 
often told us we must surelj^ stop at " Warm " as 
all the lovers of the country stayed there in the 
early Spring. I don't know where, unless it was 
at the village store for the hotel was not open until 
the first of June. 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

There were coloured workmen about, ancient serv- 
ants who, my friend said, were always delighted to 
point out Hollyhock Row, the little line of houses, 
one of which Thomas Jefferson had occupied when 
he went to take the cure. My eye was pleased with 
an old chap wearing a lamb's wool beard who was 
trundling a wheelbarrow aimlessly about, and who 
was as delighted as she said he would be — ^not to 
talk, but to put down the wheelbarrow. Yet he 
disremembered which was Hollyhock Row, and 
when I pressed him further for news items con- 
cerning Thomas Jefferson he repeated (while he 
should have scratched but did not scratch his head) : 
" Mistah Jefferson? Mistah Jefferson? " as though 
trying to recall his lineaments. 

" He's dead," I told him. 

" Daid? " He started off with his wheelbarrow. 
" Then he don' come hj^ar no moh." He was a very 
commercial old darky having no use for any one 
who could no longer fill the coffers of " Warm." 

I could have told him myself that very little 
money was ever made out of Thomas Jefferson. 
One will always notice that a man who writes him- 
self down as simple is shrewd as well. Judging by 
his manner of travelling to the Springs he was more 
shrewd than simple. In the old Warm Springs 
ledger there is an account of one's week's board for 
T. Jefferson and entourage which amounted to 

-^178^- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

thirty-five dollars. He disputed this sum and went 
to law over a bottle of wine costing two shillings 
and some odd pence. All of this is very simple 
until we learn that the entourage consisted of a 
valet, two outriders, a coachman, and eight horses — 
when it becomes very shrewd. 

I suppose the impression you leave behind is of 
more value to the world than your own perform- 
ance during the short span of years allotted a mor- 
tal. " Jeffersonian simplicity " as we interpret it 
now is the art of living without the doubtful em- 
bellishments of ginger bread elegancies in costume, 
decoration, manner, and thought. Whatever Jef- 
ferson was, a stately edifice of purest Greek archi- 
tecture rises before me when his time is brought to 
my mind — but perhaps the reader doesn't think in 
" pictures," and finds me unusually crazy. 

There is Jeffersonian simplicity at Warm 
Springs, and we revelled in being the only guests. 
The spring and bath houses are much as thej^ were 
in his day, I imagine, and the hotel is kept severe 
by no departure from its old form as the new wings 
have been added. Lines of little one-room apart- 
ments surround the main building, one of them 
of brick with a few hollyhocks shooting up which 
we took to be the famous Row. A white fence en- 
closes the grounds in which the grass grew soft and 
rich beside the little brook, and blue violets bloomed 

-J-179-J- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

thickly. We occupied any apartment we wished 
and it cost us nothing at all, which would have de- 
lighted the heart of our third President; nor were 
there coloured sweaters or gaudy parasols to de- 
tract from the scene of other days. 

We were forced to stop again, and for the third 
time within twenty-four hours, to pay a quarter of 
a dollar toll for the privilege of going over the 
short strip of macadam between the famous water- 
ing places. The Hot Springs Company speak 
largely in their brochure of this road they have 
given the guests, but omit any reference to the toll- 
gate. However, they permit the waters to be drunk 
by those who have not the means to stay at the 
Homestead, and grant the privilege of the golf 
course to all. And that is very decent of them. 
European cures exact a tax for drinking from 
the various sources, except that one known as the 
Deux Reines in Aix-les-Bains, which is for the 

plain people. And, as W once remarked, two 

queens isn't much of a hand but it makes a very 
good drink. 

The last of the riding horses were being led away 
by neat little grooms as we correctly reached the 
front of the hotel. All day we had heard the pleas- 
ant clopping of their feet upon the asphalted circle 
of the court. The tennis and golf players were 
swinging in; even the lovers were quitting Sunset 

-*-180-«- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

Rock for the privilege of becoming more enticing 
in evening dress. The hush that comes with the 
dusk both in the caravansaries of country and city 
was over the house. The tea things had gone clat- 
tering to rest, the mighty clamour of dinner had not 
yet begun. The clerks for the evening had already 
come down in their dinner jackets, but they were as 
the ticket takers in the front of the theatre before 
the doors are open. 

I felt that I could hear the voice of the stage 
manager warning the actors with his " half hour, 
half hour," up and down the corridors off some 
great dim stage. Like the stage hands the bell 
boys were laughing together. The whole building 
was getting ready for the evening's business. But 
it was not my business. I was impatient with the 
idle hours which lay ahead of me. Yet, for a space, 
I could follow out the custom of the theatre: I 
went to my room — and made up. 

Diversions went on at a gi-eat rate after dinner 
in various parts of the hotel, with none of the con- 
fusion of a midway plaisance. Guests sat on either 
side the long corridor for the doubtful enjoyment 
of looking at each other. A cinema was amusing 
such as could not deviate from the nightly observ- 
ance; there was dancing and a cabaret perform- 
ance in another wing; and a lecture on the subject 
of Preparedness easily won the greatest numbers 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

of all the attractions. We thought it significant of 
the times that so many young people came to the 
lecture as well as the governors, generals, and am- 
bassadors who lent weight by their presence. We 
sat with the lecturer for a while afterwards, as the 
players sit over their supper, and I went to bed feel- 
ing more comfortable than I had been at the dinner 
hour, since I was, at least, on one side a curtain. 

The next day was as the one which preceeded it, 
which no doubt sounds eminently satisfactory to a 
large part of the world. It was distinguished only 
by an absence of laundry work on Toby — distin- 
guished by that and a remoulding of the Illustra- 
tor's earlier avowal that he could stay there for- 
ever to an oft-uttered conviction that we must 
either stay or go on. 

The first few idle days anywhere are, to those 
addicted to work, extremely full of hours. In a 
little while we grow accustomed to doing nothing, 
barely finding time to accomplish even this. It is 
so on ship board, endless first days, swiftly moving 
last ones with none of the letters written which we 
had expected to get off. I don't suppose that saint 
who spent his life on top of a column ever wanted 
to shin down and run about a little after a month of 
elegant leisure. As we had a circular tour to make 
pro bono publico we did not wish to become habit- 
uated to a column — even to a colonnade — and long 

-^182-^- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

before the dancers had ceased whirling in the ball- 
room on the second night I was packing away my 
evening frock, taking the flowers off my hat to 
pin them back on my dinner gown, and compress- 
ing my thin tailor suit into the size of a homeo- 
pathic pill. 

These gowns, with my travelling costume, and a 
black satin coat was my entire outfit. W car- 
ried a serge suit besides his motoring and evening 
clothes. We both had extra headgear (one h. g. 
apiece) and with this limited wardrobe we could 
have gone around the world — if we didn't stay too 
long in one place. Even so we might not have been 
able to have left the following morning had not 
Sir Walter Scott bestirred himself. 

Sir Walter was to me what Hancock was to the 
Illustrator. He did not offer to valet me, but he 
presented himself at my door shortly after our 
arrival with a plea to remove the antiphlogistine 
plaster which was curing my coat of pneumonia, 
bring up the papers, or, since I suggested it, write 
me a novel. I made no tax upon his literary prow- 
ess, but he did go staggering off to " an obligin' 
lady " with the khaki bookcase laundry bag 
emptied of books and demoted to its original pur- 
pose. 

(To my bitter envy W used this word de- 
mote in his book about the war. It doesn't convey 

-+-183-i- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

the right meaning here but I can wait no longer to 
employ it.) 

If I have any fault to find with the Homestead 
it is with the laundry system. During Easter 
Week, at least, you cannot send out a great mass of 
belligerent garments early in the morning and have- 
them come back almost before you've brushed your 
teeth, subdued and orderly in a paper box. But 
Sir Walter arranged that with the obliging lady. 
And I must say they made a very good appearance 
on her line, for we saw them as we drove by on our 
first day among the barracks. 

The matter of linen while travelling is a trouble- 
some one. It takes so long to get your effects 
washed in the small towns of Europe that we of 
limited kit generally resort to the village shops, 

W going about looking very feminine and I 

equally masculine, everything handmade and hide- 
ous. It is too bad women cannot be comfortable in 
paper, with lace, like paper doilies, and ribbon like 
confetti serpentines, while the men disport them- 
selves in celluloid shirts which can be washed off 
at night. 

Failing in this we have decided that it is easier 
when motoring in our own country to cut down 
our travelling bags by sending home the used linen 
and having fresh relays mailed to us at points des- 
ignated ahead. I say " mailed " for this is the day 

h-184j-*- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

of the parcel post, yet — while I do not wish to bias 
you — it would be better to express them. I own 
five shares of an express company and we are not 
doing any too well. 

" Why," demanded my exasperated family, " did 
you buy express stock just as the parcel post came 
in? " And, tracing it back, my only reason for this 
investment was overhearing an old lady say that her 
company had passed a dividend. So I hurried off 
with my money under the impression that " passing 
a dividend " was related to " cutting a melon." 

Be that as it may. Sir Walter Scott returned with 
the laundry, and the Illustrator and I parted from 
him and Hancock the next morning with real re- 
gret. They were such uncommonly nice darkies 
down there that I am reminded of the performance 
of The Cavalier, a play of Julie Marlowe's. I was 
within hearing of IVIark Twain at a performance, 
the delightful man drawling out that he didn't see 
why INIiss INIarlowe was taking on so over her loss of 
the wicked villain in the drama when a nice old 
darky, quite the finest man in the piece, was as 
constant as ever. 

Just such a magnificent character served our last 
breakfast in our rooms. He actually brought back 
a five dollar bill which, with the negligence of the 
artistic, we had inadvertently put down on the 
breakfast tray, and refused a quarter tip which the 

-^ 185 H- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

Illustrator tendered him because I had already 

given him one. As W said : " Let us get away 

from here before we wake up — or before they do." 
We did get away before all of the guests were 
awake, although the horses had begun clopping up 
the asphalt ere the self-starter had thought of 
starting. They stretched their necks and sniffed 
at the car as though to say: " If you can get up 
earlier or go to bed later than a Hot Springs pleas- 
ure horse you are some automobile." 

I like to think they like it — this ceaseless canter- 
ing over the country. An Englishman who is fond 
of " huntin' " assures me that the foxes like it. Al- 
though as one of our own wise judges said recently 
as he fined a man with the same argument for 
pulling hair out of a horse's tail: " I'd rather hear 
from the horse." 

One can greatly doubt this vicarious enjoyment 
in life. My heart goes out to the women wearily 
turning the hurdy-gurdy. How entirely unselfish 
they are! Do they get any glow from the airs 
they give, the modern dances, the old songs? 
" Don't you remember we heard it at the Knicker- 
bocker," we say, or " My mother used to sing that," 
and drop in a penny. I have a feeling that I always 
write better after wrapping up a cent or two in an 
envelope to throw it down on " Tipperary " or 
some other matutinal offering. And there is one 

-^- 186 -^- I 




THE NATURAL BRIDGE 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

shrewd old fellow playing tunes out of tune who 
must be quite aware of my superstition, for he 
comes around regularly at ten to force me into of- 
fering libations to this strange literary god. 

And, while I know we should be getting on to 
White Sulphur, I do throw them something if they 
play after dark. It is because they haven't had a 
good day that they stay out late. Long after they 
have passed your window and you have finished 
your dinner they are pulling their musica through 
squalid streets to leave their earnings with the Pa- 
drone before they can rest. Also (positively the 
last interlude) did you ever try to play a hand or- 
gan? A great actress once — but, no, I will keep 
my word. 

We are on the road to White Sulphur Springs! 
It was so good to be going on again, even though 
we left our quarter's worth of macadam very 
shortly and plunged into mud moderated by the 
sun's rays. It seemed that every bird in the valley 
had come out to greet us, and they do have a won- 
derful way of piping up when they catch the hum 
of the engine. It was as incongruous as a canary 
which always begins to sing during a family quarrel 
(one's famih^ quarrel, not yours or mine) . I think 
it is very generous in them to respond with their 
best notes to such unlovely ones, for a motor while 
lovely to us could not be to them, nor, surely, fam- 

r-«-187-*- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

ily bickering. Possibly birds are more conventional 
than we think, and wish to cover all unpleasantness 
with a social air, like nervous hostesses when hosts 
are grumpy. 

There was a great stir among little things along 
the way. Chipmunks, rabbits, and weavy lizards 
coming out to tantalise Toby, the mighty hunter. 
All of this not on account of our advent, but super- 
induced by the new green which was much further 
along in this valley of Falling Springs than that of 
Warm Springs. Falling Springs is the name of 
the valley through which we ran to Covington, al- 
though I don't know how anything can spring and 
fall at the same time. Cures of milder fame but 
quite as lovely were at every hand. The Romans 
would have died happy with all these baths, and, 
dying, would have left a marvellous housing for the 
waters and fine roads leading to them. 

We descended from the car frequently, attracted 
by the verdure and glad to note by our boot heels 
that the soilure was less. ( Soilure is as good a word 
as demote any day. It is employed constantly by 
some of our newest writers and I have managed to 
get it in before the Illustrator has even heard of 
it.) We should not have done this as we wished 
to lunch at White Sulphur. Forty miles is a mere 
nothing to the hotel clerk, but the name of the val- 
ley coupled with the condition of the roads very 

-8-188 -J- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

delicately reminded us of the probability of fall- 
ing springs if our pace were too swift. After hav- 
ing made this good resolution we immediately 
broke it, as though it were the second of January, 
to investigate a series of little ponds, like those in a 
sunken garden, with a sort of green fluff over them. 

The chauffeur promptly said the fluff was water 
cress. He was a man of wide knowledge. We 
could not blame him for lacking any great familiar- 
ity with an automobile as one cannot know every- 
thing. And he was always right — about the other 
things. Although disputed by me it was water 
cress. 

This fact made less absurd the actions of a num- 
ber of men who were wading out in the ponds and 
slicing off the fluff with long knives. It was the 
Falling Springs Cress Company as a very agree- 
able Mr. Reed told us. The cress grows the year 
round, for the spring waters which feed the little 
lakes are warm, and thousands of barrels are sent 
away to the city markets. I can't imagine any 
pleasanter method of making a living than to go 
out in rubber boots and slice off a few barrels 
every morning, cutting your bread and butter as it 
were. 

One (if I am the one) always thinks of water 
cress as growing in polluted brooks, and given away 
in a haphazard fashion to the grocer. It never oc- 

■H- 189 -J- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

curred to me that everything which supplies the 
vast markets of today must be an incorporated in- 
dustry. And despite the scandals frequently aired 
concerning corporations, one finds that they are 
cleanly organisations who wash their hands before 
going to work — or wear white gloves on them 
anyway. I have eaten water cress ever since in the 
hope that I may have a complexion like Mrs. Reed. 
She came out to talk to us also, and assured me it 
was her steady diet, never " smattering " her 
wi'inkles at all. I have bought no shares in this en- 
terprise so it is nothing to me, but I beg that you 
will insist for the sake of your health upon Falling 
Springs cress. 

Before reaching Covington where the turn is 
made for White Sulphur, one sees the Falling 
Springs Run, which sounds like a new and wild 
dance step but is really the little run coming from 
the springs and, tripping over a rock, falls two hun- 
dred feet. A guide book urges you to go down 
and look up at it, more than inferring that Thomas 
Jefferson, when he became enraged at Warm 
Springs prices and went on to " White," did this. 
But I don't suppose any one ever did " get down 
and look under " unless he fell over. 

I was reading in Jefferson's Notes on Virginia 
one day, reading as well as I could with my lor- 
gnon at home (I have those beautiful near sighted 

-j-190-2- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

brown eyes one reads about in novels) and he him- 
self insinuated that he had been down under the 
falls, just as the guide book pretends that it has 
been there also; just as I might say I had gone if 

I were not more honest than W thinks I am. 

How disconcerting it would be to those who have 
printed " There is a space between the falling wa- 
ter and the rock wide enough for one to pass," if 
I said in this book, " There is a pleasant Louis 
Quinze salon behind the falls replete with gold 
chairs." Each panicky guide book which has been 
getting information from earlier and yet earlier 
guides would cry, " She has been there, she has been 
there! " and run down to the printer's. 

We were quite satisfied with our view from a 
height. A river wound about below as serpent like 
as a Spanish dancer. It was a thick mineralish 
(made up word) stream with poplar trees on either 
side looking from above like a Holland canal. Af- 
ter we had successfully encountered and escaped 
Covington we found it to be something of a brawler 
at times, like a placid woman with gusts of temper. 
It has not a lady's name. It is Jackson's River, 
so says Mr. Jefferson, and although it doesn't know 
it when it springs and runs and falls, the stream 
becomes the great historic James further on, and, 
after Seeing Virginia First, empties into the ocean 
and goes to Europe. 

-h 191 -*- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

There are many places of interest on the twenty 
miles between Covington and White Sulphur, 
and, stimulated by the guide book, I was going to 
pay close attention to them, but we had not gone 
far before we overtook a tired looking pedestrian 
with several awkward parcels in his arms, and a 
checked gingham cap that had already burst its 
paper bag and was literally on the man's hands to 
his great discomfiture. We took the tall moun- 
taineer on the running board, and were glad that 
we did for he was one of those inept, tragic-eyed 
creatures who are put down by their neighbours as 
" not worth a darn." But he had walked ten miles 
to put flowers on " mah little grave," and was walk- 
ing ten miles back. It was to be Children's Day 
soon and all the " folks raound aboot " there fixed 
up the little graves while the little live children had 
games and marches and cakes. 

W held the parcels, which poked him in the 

eye ungratefully, while the man hung on, making 
an effort to entertain us in exchange for the ride. 
There were trout in the brooks, yes, ma am, moun- 
tain trout, that's the speckled kind and rainbow 
trout, like rainbow, eighteen inches or two feet 
long. He spoke very often of the dimensions of 
these trout, never varying as to their measurements, 
and it is the only fish story I ever heard that didn't 

-e-192-e- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

grow with repetition. Possibly it had already 
grown as long as it decently could. 

His friends passed, greeting him with the good- 
humoured contempt that is always apportioned the 
gentle ones in life. 

" See yuh got a new machine, Jeb." 

" What'd yuh trade foh it, Jeb, one of them 
chil'ren? " 

Jeb only smiled. " We'all got ten chil'ren and 
the one in the little grave," he explained to us. 
" But I wouldn't swap nariest one of 'em foh yer 
machine — though it's almighty purty," he added 
hastily. 

A large portion of the ten children were waiting 
at a scraggly lane for him, and he was so eager to 
show them what he had that there was no exchange 
of good-byes at all. He had unwrapped his pur- 
chases before a bend in the road hid him from us. 
The uncompromising parcel which had hacked 
at the Illustrator's features resolved itself into 
banners for Children's Day. Flags for those 
so eagerly living — flowers for the little quiet 
one. 

There is a residence on or near the route to 
" White " which I had determined to see. It was 
built by Lord Milton and was, very Englishly, 
named Oak Hall. " Tommy loves a lord," and so 
does every one else, yet it was not the aristocratic 

-J- 193 -*- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

owner that made the estate precious to me, but a 
behef that I should find Oak Hall as noble as El- 
sie's Roselands, or, at least, as impressive as Mr. 
Travilla's mansion. 

You may recall that Mr. Travilla married Elsie 
— in time — meaning by that when she grew up. It 
was her father who was obliged to venture a re- 
proof in the course of their honeymoon as Elsie had 
flippantly addressed her husband by his first name. 
I don't remember whether or not she ever worked 
around to it again after that " calling down." But 
he remained in my mind from the instant I read 
of her breach of etiquette, as Mr. Travilla. I was 
always in terror of Horace Dinsmore and I knew 
that he wished the readers to follow in Elsie's foot- 
steps. 

I never got a sniff at Oak Hall. No sooner had 
we put down the mountaineer than we took on an 
ancient coloured man clad in a green-black Prince 
Albert and brown derby. I did not rebel at this, 
although it passed through my mind that a con- 
centration on Lord Milton's estate would have been 
a better preparation for the proud and haughty 
Greenbrier. I was entirely wrong. The darky had 
come from one of the very best families in Vir- 
ginia. " We wuz own by one fahm'ly, we wuz 
nevah sole away from 'em, and we hev wukked fo 
'em evah sense," he said. To be the best of your 

-i- 194 -f- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

kind is just about as fine a type of aristocrat as 
we have in America. 

He was in high feather. On Sundays he was a 
preacher and he had recently bought a church at a 
bargain. He had demanded of them the very low- 
est price and they said five hundred dollars cash, 
and afterward three hundred dollars cash, then two 
hundred dollars. So the bargain was concluded. 

" And you paid him two hundred dollars down? " 
asked W eyeing him respectfully. 

" No, suh. Ah done pay 'em twenty-five dollars 
down, and hev lef ' de res' to mah congregation an' 
mah Gawd." 

TVTiite Sulphur comes upon the traveller of the 
road so suddenly that our arrival might have been 
as great a fiasco as at Hot Springs. One can 
imagine nothing more stimulating to the guests 
than bringing up before the very white structure 
of the Greenbrier Hotel with a very black man en- 
joying the ride with us. It was the old fellow him- 
self who asked to be put down, for no one is more 
observant of the proprieties than one who serves, 
and, unimpeded, we swung past the iron gates, and 
drove through the lovely wood to the great circular 
steps. 

Toby descended with the bored air a long pedi- 
gree granted him. He might have hmniliated us in 
Staunton but he knew that he lent dignity to his 

-*- 195 -i- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

owners at White Sulphur. We passed through the 
entrance into the fine hall of Italian aspect. It 
was like a Roman palazzo made entirely habitable. 
The supreme elegance of country hotel life was 
ours. As a woman we knew had said of rapidly 
climbing friends, " They have arrived. They have 
gone from Warm to Hot to White." 

If one should ask why we stayed two nights in 
Hot Springs and only lunched at White Sulphur, 
let me remind him of Sir Walter Scott's obliging 
lady whose spirit, while willing, was hampered by 
flesh too weak to wash and iron in a day. We re- 
gretted this for our plan was to give one night to 
each place, making a circular tour of eighteen days, 
or less to the automobile not carrying a " sketch ar- 
tist." It is difficult to form a definite idea of a lo- 
cation unless a night is spent there. The hours of 
Eros strangely enough make the solvent which ren- 
ders into crystals the true value of the experiences 
of the day. To put it more vulgarly we get a bead 
on it, which, I believe, has something to do with 
beer and is in no way a figurative expression deal- 
ing with a laboratory. 

Still the motorist must form his impression as he 
makes his flight. Motoring discoveries are not made 
by taking a house for the Summer and getting 
acquainted with the natives. His indignation might 
be allayed if he knew why certain towns were 

H- 196 -i- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

smoky; his pen stayed if he was assured by the se- 
lectmen that the apple crop had precluded mend- 
ing the road that year; his heart softened toward 
the urchins who stone his car if told that their 
mother was ill of a fever. But in failing to record 
these incidents of travel he would be as dishonest 
as a worm insisting upon writing up a bird's-eye 
view of the earth. He must tell what he sees, grant- 
ing that, as his trip is a flight, his impressions are 
equally fleeting. While I do not wish to go so far 
as to suggest that the automobile has a place in the 
Bible, it is well for those along a motor route to 
watch and keep clean for no one knows when we 
are coming along. As you see : " The devil can 
cite scripture for his purpose." 

All this not to preface any attack upon White 
Sulphur, for I am sure if we had stayed longer we 
would have found it not less but more lovely. I 
only regret that I can but scratch on the surface 
charms of the old springs. Since we admire " Hot " 
we were relieved that they were too dissimilar for 
comparison of any sort. The buildings were white, 
white as the servants who waited upon us. The 
enclosed wood as intimate if not as beautiful as that 
of Del INIonte. It was a sheltered place, and there 
were probably many subtle social bars which I had 
no opportunity to notice. 

There was one circle, however, open to all comers. 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

A room was set aside for the making of band- 
ages, and a certain number of hours was given each 
day to such as have found ceaseless effort part of 
their lives as long as bandages are needed. It was 
closed when we arrived, and I had to concentrate 
my effort on securing rainbow trout " eighteen 
inches or two feet long " instead of three metre 
gauze strips with a little lap-over for the forceps. 
The trout, as the waiter kindly and elegantly ex- 
pressed it, was " unavailable," but our luncheon 
was at once excellent and modest in price. 

It was late but there were people about, and 
so long as there are people — any kind of people — 
the interest of life is sustained. A newly married 
pair sat next to us, looking so alarmingly alike that 
they must have been the vainest couple in the world 
to stick so closely each to his own type. I shudder 
to think of their Albino progeny. We knew they 
were not brother and sister by the restrained but 
amused interest of the guests as they passed 
through the hall. " Here comes the bride and 
groom," went the murmur. If I were a plain girl 
(plainer girl) or an unattractive man I would keep 
getting married all the time, for a honeymoon is 
the one period when the dullest couple never fails 
to attract. I am sure " here comes the bride and 
groom " must be an idiomatic phrase in every lan- 
guage of the world. 

H- 198 -e- 



}\± 




















GRANT'S HEAUQUARTKKS (PKIXCE EDWARD HOTEL), 
FARMVILLE 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

Unless we are that wondrous pair we do not come 
in for as much observation as we think we do. I 
was a long time finding that out, and I wish every 
self-conscious creature who dreads walking a long 
dining room would appreciate that two noses on 
one face, even, would be as nothing in value to a 
mouthful of guinea hen. 

We asked one of the clerks who was the decorator 
of the Greenbrier and he looked at us rather hazily. 
We knew who had done the house so charmingly 
but we were curious to see if he did. There is no 
credit given the decorator or the architect of pub- 
lic buildings in the United States as a rule. Al- 
though there is no more rightful tribute than that 
carved in stone over the Forty-second Street en- 
trance to the Grand Central Station: " To all those 
who with head, heart, and hand toiled in the con- 
struction of this monument to the public service, 
this is inscribed." 

One can hardly expect an acknowledgment of a 
decorator when the sculptor leaves no name upon 
his marble. In all of the monuments at Gettys- 
burg, or throughout our trip, we could not learn 
of the men who had moulded the wet clay and put 
into it a part of his own self. A great many of 
them ought to be glad to live on unrecognised by 
their badly conceived designs, but if some one 
would let me know who did the darling wolf peep- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

ing over the spring in Morningside Park I promise 
to send the sculptor my best typewritten praise. 

I walked about the grounds as W sat him- 
self down to sketch unhampered by crowds for 
every one is too well bred to hang about the artist 
in this pleasant wood. Beyond the Thermal Estab- 
lishment is the White Hotel. " White of White " 
I think it would be called, where the Southerners 
go in Summer; and in a semi-circle about the 
grounds like little Greek temples to inconsequential 
gods are many " semi-detached villas." They are 
generally apportioned to unmarried men, I believe ; 
at least they are known as Bachelors' Row, deli- 
cately suggesting that bachelors while detached are 
not entirely — or eternally — so. There is one villa 
of greater antiquity — and height — than the others, 
where the French photogi^apher told me " Leeve 
the Presidonz." 'No one could tell me just what 
Presidents have stayed there, although a great deal 
of screaming went on between his wife and himself 
on the subject — an altercation which I ended by 
suggesting that it would be better not to know as it 
might be some of them I didn't like. 

"You don' like the Presidonz?" he asked in 
awed fashion. He was of a republic, but he still 
held his rulers in respect — which is not to be a bad 
idea for some of us. 

As W wisely said when we got into the car, 

-?-200-?- 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

" It was just this time yesterday," which was not to 
be disputed. But we had a longer way to go on 
our return to Covington than over the primrose 
path of macadam from " Warm " to " Hot." For 
the third time that day I determined to concen- 
trate on points of interest, but I find in my note- 
book : " We went under the railway a number of 
times," which seems to be as important as Mark 
Twain's " got up, washed and went to bed," or the 
Illustrators' diary when he was a little fellow which 
reads mainly: "Am well." 

We were to spend the night in Covington, far 
removed from luxury, snatching such sleep as we 
could in a hotel along the railway track. I had been 
warned that it would be fearfully stupid, but any 
transition is agreeable — besides we always man- 
aged something. This time it was a wreck of 
freight trains directly in front of our windows. 
Now I ask you, could anything more unusual be 
prepared for a stranger than a wreck without leav- 
ing his room to enjoy it? We watched the whole 
procedure — the lifting of the cars — the beating 
back of the curious citizens — the flashing of signals 
and swinging of lanterns. And I am glad to say, 
I mean that I try to be glad to say, no one was 
hurt. By the time the night express thundered 
through the track was cleared, and Covington went 
to bed without having visited a single movie. We 



ABOUT FASHIONABLE LIFE 

found ourselves so tremendously tired that I re- 
membered calling in to W : 

" Did I tuck you in or did I kiss you good 
night?" 

I don't know yet which I did as I fell asleep be- 
fore he answered. 



202 



CHAPTER X 

And A^ow a Picnic in the Mountains, Meeting 

Charming Boys and Upsetting Two Ladies, 

Which Is Not as Bad as It Sounds 

"And pepper and salt, pepper and sa-a-a-lt!" 

It was W ordering our lunch for the day 

who awakened me, the seasoning being an after- 
thought and called through the open transom as 
the negro made his way down the hall. Possibly it 
was to humiliate me that the burden of the com- 
missary was assumed by him. I must admit that 
he filled the luncheon basket with remarkable ease. 
When I see men cooking better than women, and 
sweeping cleaner, and dusting more thoroughly, as 
well as ably conducting various business enterprises 
a terrible fear comes over me that they are really 
more capable than we are at anything they under- 
take. Then I go look at my yellow buttons which 
have decorated me as I have marched resolutely up 
Fifth Avenue, and I say, " We ought to have it 
anyway," which means the vote, of course, and I 
never tell the Illustrator what has been passing 
through my mind. 

-f-203-J- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

For the last few years we have enjoyed the su- 
premacy in one direction, at least. But with all 
this men's talk of preparation and this demonstrat- 
ing to fife and drum that they want it, even our bi- 
yearly walk up Fifth Avenue may be minimised. 
" Take my advice," I said to W on Prepared- 
ness Day as he was about to sally forth, " get near 
the band. You know I march oftener than you 
do " 

I shouldn't have told him. He has been march- 
ing steadily ever since to catch up. But I wondered 
as we ate his luncheon at the summit of North 
Mountain if " out-doing " is not among the attri- 
butes that go to make men more generally able than 
women. One fears that " to do better than others " 
is more of an incentive to mankind than "to do 
your best." 

This was to be another day among the moun- 
tains, and the hard boiled egg industry was heavily 
taxed before we started. It made a delay, which 
pleased me greatly as my three sandwiches had 
been ready far in advance. There was a great deal 
of running up and down stairs and opening of 
doors, one young man at the Hotel Collins gladly 
speeding my departure. I walked into his room 
three times in twenty minutes, varying my third 
apology by an attack upon him for not locking 
his door. The absurdity of my grievance swept 

-^ 204 -J- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

over mCj and I made a faint attempt at being hu- 
morous which was most ill-timed. " The only thing 
to do is to bar me out," I said, very embarrassed 
but trying to be gay. And while he made no re- 
ply he was evidently terrified for I heard him bar- 
ricading the entrance with a table, probably lack- 
ing a lock and a key. 

I was so afraid of overturning the table that I 
led Toby into a churchyard feeling that I could 
do no harm there, and let him run around with a 
few religious dogs while I sat on the steps mus- 
ing on churches in general. I had not ceased to 
envy the old black man of the day before who had a 
church all his own, and could say anything he 
pleased from the pulpit. It would be so agreeable 
to buy an edifice where all would have to come to 
hear me expound or they wouldn't go to heaven 
when they died. Now, I cannot make any one read 
this book — entirely too full of my opinions and too 
lacking in the history of the Old Dominion — and 
yet, a new thought strikes me, since there is a re- 
ward for all effort perhaps I shall be right in prom- 
ising a safe crossing of the Jordan to those who 
make a reader's pilgrimage from cover to cover. 

I was not able in the short time I sat on the 
church steps to decide what I should say to my 
flock. But I did make a mental resolve that I 
would not take a mean advantage of them just 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

because they couldn't get away. How we all love 
to talk down! I have sat on some Sunday night 
platforms where lecturers were provided out of 
the generosity of various philanthropists, and I 
never knew one of those philanthropists who could 
refrain from getting up before the real event of the 
evening, to make a speech of his own. They didn't 
do it well and speech-making was not their busi- 
ness, but they'd paid for the hall, and they knew 
the mean bedrooms of the young men and women 
gathered there were too cold to go back to until it 
was bedtime. 

W came along in time to rescue Toby from 

one of the religious hounds — the purchaser of the 
church no doubt — who, I regret to say, vanquished 
our blooded canine without effort. It was deeply 
humiliating to all of us, Toby repeating as he went 
along: " He was bigger'n me, Walter," as indeed 
he was. And neither Toby nor I agreed with the 
Illustrator who wished that the hound, if he had to 
bite, had taken off three inches of his tail. You 
may observe in the pictures that our dog's tail is 
of the correct length. This is either artistic license 
or the delineator's vanity over his pet. As a matter 
of fact the tail is too long, and as one who can 
preach sermons only out of a book I am obliged to 
speak of it. 

(Toby is sitting by my side very mortified over 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

the divulgence of the incorrect tail. " You ain't 
goin' to put that in the book, are you? " he asks.) 

Still it was a merry morning. We followed a 
stream which must have been Jackson's River with 
all its serenity gone and exercising like a gymnastic 
class. The cedars and firs were wearing the new 
green that seems to catch the sun's rays of a day 
less cloudy and were now generously shedding them 
again. I spoke of this, which evidently piqued the 
sun for it said very brightly, "I'll do my own shin- 
ing," and remained with us all day. I sometimes 
think if Sun Worshipping had not been abandoned 
we could make better terms with its majesty on pic- 
nic and fete days. Could you imagine the Sun Wor- 
shippers' Annual Outing to Coney Island marred 
by a rainstorm? 

It was a floral way. The fallen leaves of last 
year, having served their purpose as Winter " com- 
fortables " for the new little things, were now 
pushed aside by the ungrateful blossoms who were 
striving to peep out. May apples were sitting se- 
renely under their green umbrellas made, quite 
fashionably, for rain or shine ; and overhead a small 
yellow dogwood varied the colour scheme of the 
pink and white trees of the Shenandoah. 

There was also a tree hung with bleeding hearts, 
or what I called bleeding hearts, although our ever- 
right chauffeur did not think they grew that way. 

-h 207 -i- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

But I don't see why not. One finds them most un- 
expectedly in life, and as often in the country as 
in the strife of the city. Besides, why not bleeding 
hearts on trees? A man who knew much more of 
nature than even the chauffeur discovered three 
hundred years ago : 

'' — tongues in trees, books in the running brooks. 
Sermons in stones, and good in everything." 

We passed through Clifton Forge as a whistle 
warned us that we had fooled away our time until 
it was high noon. I don't know how hastily Clifton 
Forge goes to work but it stops labouring in the 
most businesslike fashion. Although a small town 
the streets were as full of people as on circus day at 
Staunton. The railway tracks were crowded with 
coal cars, an express train thundered up, a local 
drew in and the travellers, each preferring the other 
train, tore back and forth. It was almost impos- 
sible for us to keep from flying out and " changing 
cars " with some one, leaving our nice new automo- 
bile and taking a small affair with bent mud 
guards. 

We breathed more freely when we ran into the 
fields again, the Illustrator promising me quiet, 
away from a vast city's din, until we reached Long- 
dale Furnace. The landscape would suggest peace 

-?-208-2- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

and serenity. We were running along a mild river 
with wagon wheels branching off the highway and 
inviting us down to the water's edge as much as to 
say, " Aw come on in," in the lingo of dear Skinny 
on the funny page. But we would not go in for 
fear we'd get wet — like the boy who minds his 
mother. The mother in this instance was, or were, 
two men in a buckboard who said the fords were 
too deep for machines, then flipped over themselves 
like fat dragon flies. 

There was a reward for minding mother: we 
" got to go " anyway. At the next enticing little 
set of ruts we were hailed from across the way by 
an agonised voice crying, *' Stop, Look, Listen." 
We could not believe this to be a railroad crossing 
come to life, and it was not the place for a comic 
opera of some such modern name. But we did all 
three things while the blond young man who had 
hailed us came to the edge of the bank opposite. 
" I had to say something quick," he explained. 
"I've tried making a polite start and they've all 
gone on." 

We looked interested. "It's just this," he con- 
tinued, " we've come from Lewisburg and are go- 
ing on to Lexington for the Washington and Lee 
track." 

" Oh, yes," I encouraged, feeling that I had 
found a writer of travel stories in this solitude, 

.-»- 209 -«- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

" ' On the Track of Washington and Lee,' you call 
the article? " 

" Ma'am? " said the blond young man. 

The Illustrator turned to me severely. " Wash- 
ington and Lee is a big college at Lexington. It's 
their day for track sports. Hush." Then he 
turned to the boy deferentially. " Go on. She un- 
derstands now." 

She! The " unexpressive she" of Mr. Shake- 
speare I suppose. 

The young man went on quite as foolish in his 
way as I was in mine, and greatly endearing him- 
self to me. He had forded his car across the stream 
and he had got stuck for his carburetor was low, so 
that horses had to pull him out. And now it 
wouldn't go. In the most charming and apologetic 
fashion he began to wonder — he took a long breath 
— if he waded across to us and then stood up along- 
side our carburetor, in this manner measuring the 
water's cruel height on his trousers with the height 
of our carburetor, and if our carburetor was higher 
than the high-water mark on his trousers would we 
then ford the stream so as to find out why his car 
didn't go. " Because," completed the delightful 
college youth, " we 'all are perfect greenhorns 
about a c'yar." 

We took a chance and motored over, reaching 
the other side without horses, though with a high- 

-?-210-e- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

water mark of our own. There were four boys. 
The intrepid barker was not the owner at all, but 
simply a guest rendered desperate in his anxiety to 
get on the track of Washington and Lee. They 
had all driven cars of their own, however, and they 
knew no more about their insides than I do about 
physiology — another one of my studies in which I 
achieved almost supreme failure at examinations. 

All coats were off including a large part of 
Toby's as I sat on the roadside and firmly combed 
him. I suppose I should have been " smattering " 
my wrinkles. While the beauty expert had said I 
would find plenty of time on a motor trip, this was 
the first moment of complete idleness that had been 
ticked off my watch. But I really could not get out 
that baby pancake turner and begin beating my 
face into a pulp before those nice boys. I was dis- 
tressed that I was too modest to do this. Not that 
I mind being modest but an anxiety to appear well 
before young men is a sign of increasing years in a 
woman. 

Putting the car through its simple tests was a 
forlorn hope speedily abandoned. Like the ve- 
hicles of the gypsies the magneto was undoubtedly 
wet, and there was little to do beyond wheeling the 
car about where the kindly sun would dry it out in 
time. Not in time for the meet, I fear, for we did 
not see them again. Our chauffeur would take no 

-^211-<- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

money from the boys so we all shook hands, the 
barker urging us to visit him in Lewisburg where 
we must go right to the bank. 

It was the first time we had ever ingratiated 
ourselves with a bank — at least to the extent of 
staying over night — and we deeply resent each 
other's forgetting the pleasant boy's name and the 
business abode of his father. We might be taken 
for motor bandits if we suddenly appeared at the 
wrong bank with our bags in hand as though ready 
for the specie; and even if we never get there I 
trust some one of his companions will send me his 
real name so that I may say in my Johnsonian dic- 
tionary: friendly type of Americana found in Ap- 
palachian Range, frequently at water's edge, or on 
(in — at) the bank. 

We were nerving ourselves up for the city tur- 
moil of Longdale Furnace. If a mere ford could 
so teem with activity think of the hectic possibilities 
of a furnace. The approach was very piano, pre- 
luded by melancholy, and we entered a deserted vil- 
lage which had cast its shadow before. There were 
long rows of workingmen's cottages unoccupied, 
unusually good houses which the wives must have 
left with sorrow. I thought of the moving fever 
which had seized me earlier in the season. I sup- 
pose it would not be so attractive if we moved from 
the necessity of living, hunger, the wolf, following 

-e-212-i- 







^^K^:.:^ 






/ 



^ 






THE KOAD Tu Till-: EAST THROUGH XoTToWAV CUUXTY 
VIRGINIA 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

our footsteps as we pursued labour, the will-o'-the- 
wisp. We heard somewhere that these iron works 
had been closed down because the owner had found 
the country lonely. I don't believe it, but if it is 
so I trust the ore workers sealed him up in one of 
his furnaces before they left their homes. 

As soon as we turned to the right after Longdale 
Fm'nace we began the six mile ascent of North 
Mountain. We approached it with a good deal of 
curiosity for we had been variously advised as to 
this climb over the highest and the steepest of the 
Virginia mountains. In garages, where talk is lim- 
ited to the feats of the motor car, preferably the 
car of the talker, there was such diverse informa- 
tion that one would have to make the ascent if only 
to find out for himself. We were told that the road 
was perfect — there was no road — it was all mud — 
no, all stone — a child's velocipede could do it — no 
motor could make it — ad libitum, ad infinitum, and 
all those other things. 

We found on this trip through the South that 
the most reliable information came from the owners 
of automobiles who sent out parties in their cars. 
They have no axe to grind as you do not want to 
rent a car, they are not hotel men whose motoring 
is limited to the desk, and their automobiles, com- 
ing and going constantly, are familiar with the 
general condition of the roads. The one in Hot 

-h 213 -i- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

Springs told us to go ahead, and I shouldn't have 
missed it for a wilderness of springs and tires. 

The valleys in this part of the mountains are 
much richer in growth than those between Hot 
Springs and Staunton, and at every twist of the 
steep way our eyes were turned from the poor road 
bed to the softly breathing country beneath us. 
Higher and higher we climbed, winding back and 
forth like the lacets of the Alps, and more and more 
abundantly the earth spread itself to our vision. 
No wonder great men are benevolent in their view 
toward mankind. From their height they see 
clearly our little mental farms, know the poor 
ground from^the rich soil, recognise those who toil 
unceasingly and the lazy pompous ones sleeping in 
a shade which lavish nature has unworthily be- 
stowed upon them. 

We were nearly to the timber line when we 
reached the summit, stopping at a little spring on 
the descent to eat our luncheon. Here we found 
late trailing arbutus which I had never seen before 
except in round hard bunches on the trays of the 
city vendors, bringing to us promise of a new en- 
casing for our weary spirits. The blossoms were 
our only table decorations and we did not uproot 
them, but ate alongside the floral display something 
after the fashion of Mahomet going to the moun- 
tain. The bottle of buttermilk was cooled in the 

-<-214-j- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

spring and drunk out of the squashy paper cups 
which preclude any greediness in drinking hy flying 
their contents all over you. It was a very satisfac- 
tory picnic — lacking ants in the cake. Even Toby 
had a bone which he remarkably refused to eat in 
such elevated surroundings. A bone in a kitchen, 
yes, a bone under the bed or on the best rug, yes, 
but not — though the stomach yearns — a bone on 
trailing arbutus. 

Now and then he barked challenges to unseen 
foes. The silence may have alarmed him. There 
is, to me, more an element of remoteness in these 
mountains than in the greater ones of the North- 
west. It is hard to believe that during the French 
and Indian War in 1755 there was a continual 
marching of troops over these paths, that the coun- 
try was settled before that time by the fathers of 
men who grew to be the heroes dear to all boys: 
Indian fighters. Near White Sulphur is a tomb- 
stone which bears the date of 1662. The grave it- 
self is no more mysterious than the lonely soul who 
chiselled the year upon the stone, for there is no 
record of a white man's settlement in this part of 
the country at so early a time. The chauffeur sug- 
gested that it was put up as a joke, I don't know 
on whom, but if any one makes me out a century 
older than I am I shall find a method of getting 
back to earth. 

-^215-f- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

His pleasantry was not advanced in the moun- 
tain, but after we had reached the plain again when 
one is relaxed and folly is normal. I could never 
live continually on the heights. It would be like 
sitting at breakfast opposite some profoundly deep 
thinker, or even some very brilliant person shooting 
off epigrams as one squirts grape juice. To sit 
opposite any one at breakfast is hard enough. My 
only companion is the canary bird who thinks cof- 
fee is bad for me and, perching on the edge of the 
cup, fights every swallow I take. 

("You ain't goin' to put that canary in, are 
you? " asks a certain jealous dog.) 

We were now in the far reaches of the Shenan- 
doah Valley sliding away from the Appalachian 
Range (which my typist so hates to spell) and slip- 
ping toward the Blue Ridge. Between the two lies 
Lexington, containing not only the track but the 
.University of Washington and Lee, or Washington 
College as it was called before General Lee was 
made its president after the war. If I do say it I 
am something of a connoisseur on Lexingtons. I 
have passed through (praise be) those of Missouri 
and Nebraska. Friends have shown me their Min- 
ute Men and some very nice ones of more recent 
date in the Lexington of Massachusetts, and I 
played in that muddy, horsy town of the same name 
in Kentucky during my first year " on the boards." 

-J-216-*- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

The scene of the play was laid in Kentucky, and 
the villain was patterned, so far as outward make- 
up was concerned, after a most exemplary black- 
haired citizen who took an unhappy pride in the 
doubtful compliment of the playwright. The char- 
acter in the drama was the meanest villain I have 
ever met with. I played adventuresses in my ex- 
treme youth, as my hair was black, too, so the bad 
man of the play was generally my father and I am 
in a position to know as much about villains as I 
do about Lexingtons. Every night the good man 
of the horsy town sat in a box so that all could see 
the resemblance between his black beard and the 
black beard of the bad man on the stage, and the 
more the actor threw bombs and poisoned horses 
the prouder the original bearded one became. It 
wouldn't surprise me at all if I were to learn that 
he finally went on the stage to play the role him- 
self, and was featured by the management as ap- 
pearing every night in real Kentucky whiskers. 

While we were too late for the track of Wash- 
ington and Lee I found the Lexington of Virginia 
more to my taste than any of the other towns (ad- 
mitting that I am unfamiliar with Lexington Junc- 
tion, " Mo.") . To be sure there was a contest, not 
of the day's sports, but between the Illustrator and 
myself over a choice of composition. He wanted 
to do the church where Stonewall Jackson taught 

H- 217 -<- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

his darky Sunday School class, and I wanted the 
back of Doctor White's house. I thought it should 
go down to posterity, as the back door is even 
lovelier than the front, like a fine soul in an ugly 
body. 

I do not know Doctor White ; all this was told me 
by a student, who also said that the nagroes {he 
elegantly pronounced it so) were taught by Gen- 
eral Jackson. The pronouncer of nagro said he 
lived in Greenwich Village of New York City, but 
when I challenged his accent admitted that he was 
born in Georgia. He conducted us on a little pil- 
grimage to the grave of Robert E. Lee, who rests 
with the Lee family. 

The slight detour wasn't much of a compliment 
to pay the great strategist, but it was all we had to 
give except an increasing heartache for him and the 
shabby band he led. The Civil War was closing in 
on us. Appomattox lay but a day ahead where 
the Confederate and the Federal Generals met, Lee 
to offer his sword. Grant to refuse it. As we left 
the town we passed the cemetery where Jackson 
is buried, his monument rising above the others. 

" You won't have to stop," suggested the stu- 
dent. " You can just peep in and say you've been 
there." 

" What are you going to be when you grow up? " 
I demanded of him. 

H- 218 -«- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

" I am going to be a writer." He had one of the 
requisites. 

We achieved Natural Bridge with but one in- 
cident which might have been an accident. It was 
all owing to a buggy ahead trying to make up its 
mind which side to give us. The Illustrator of- 
fered to wager a large sum of money that a woman 
was driving, which was not entirely true as two 
women were driving, one rein in the hands of each. 
They finally brought up in a ditch on the wrong 
side. Although they were wrong we righted them, 
the chauffeur very honestly restoring a purse which 
they did not deserve, while the ladies admitted that 
they just couldn't quite decide. One meets with 
very little of this foolish driving in Virginia, al- 
though the further South we went the more fright- 
ened the horses became, and there was a good deal 
of hopping out on our part to lead the poor beasts 
past our terrifying engine of war. 

There was no sign of a Natural Bridge when we 
arrived there, only an unnatural hotel, charmingly 
situated, which didn't take dogs. One of the women 
guests pleaded that he be allowed to remain, and 
upon Toby promising that he would not steal the 
towels we were all accommodated. 

This was real country again, the doors of the 
rooms opening directly upon a long veranda on the 
ground floor. I should say it was the safest hotel 

.-»- 219 -J- 



A PICNIC IN THE MOUNTAINS 

in the world for a large sign in the Illustrator's 
room read, " Fire escape on back porch." One 
hopes no nervous women like those of the buggy 
will ever read this and be found clinging to it when 
they could comfortably walk down the steps. 

" Lilacks am right nice," said the waiter as he 
placed the blossoms on our supper table, and it was 
all very nice indeed until we thought we would 
take one look at the Natural Bridge before going 

to bed. I bounced in on W as he and Toby 

were getting ready to view the marvel of nature by 
moonlight. 

" It costs a dollar a head to see the bridge be 

natural," I shouted. They sat down again, W 

to begin a series of thinking which resulted in: 

" The French Government open to the public the 
greatest natural bridge in the world, that of Con- 
stantine in North Africa. The Spaniards offer 
the Alhambra without fees; the Forum in Rome 
is for the people. But in America we had to pay 
for a ridiculous length of length to view Niagara 
Falls, and the enjoyment of an arch of rock still 
costs us a dollar. Five francs — five lire — five 
pesetas — four marks or four shillings. Think what 
we could get for the equivalent of a dollar in 
France, Italy, Spain, Germany, or England." 

" Fire escape on back porch," I read aloud, not 
that it was a very funny speech but I didn't want 
the Illustrator to begin and end this chapter. 

-J- 220 -^- 



CHAPTER XI 

Something Better than My Father's Cousin 

Lauras Stereopticons, After That a Bad Road 

Sprinkled with Kindness — hut Read Along 

We are like all Americans: we grumble at im- 
positions — and accept them. After we had made 
ready the baggage the next morning we swelled the 
coffers of the gentleman who farms Natural Bridge 
and went to see it. 

There was some difficulty in getting a porter 
to our rooms as the electric button couldn't be 
found, and was discovered only by working from 
the floor up, and pushing everything from the wall 
paper design to early moths impressed upon the 
freshly painted woodwork. It reminded me of a 
dinner guest of ours who was discovered ten min- 
utes after he had taken leave still waiting for the 
elevator with his thumb pressed on the ornamental 
iron flower, mistaking it for the bell. What? No, 
he was a temperate man. 

We paid a dollar each to a ticket taker who 
charged nothing for Toby or for his own (the ticket 

taker's) good manners. W said green goods 

men were always polite, yet after we passed 

-J- 221-*- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

through the glen and came to the arch we decided 
that dealers in green goods of this sort were in a 
very decent business. 

I never saw such radiance as that May morning ! 
The rock must have got wind of our diatribe 
against it, the Illustrator's voice borne on the wind 
perhaps, and had spent the night festooning itself 
with pink blossoms and filling every crevice with 
the newest thing in green. I don't know why wo- 
men of advanced age look so ridiculous in the 
clothes of a debutante when such array is so becom- 
ing to an old rock. I had a very definite picture 
in my mind of Natural Bridge, due to my father's 
Cousin Laura's stereopticon views with which I was 
always entertained in my youth when our family 
took Sunday night tea with her. These views 
formed my taste for scenery, setting a sort of stand- 
ard. Since then I have visited many of the mar- 
vels of nature, but so excellent were her pictures to 
my child's mind that I have frequently been obliged 
to say to the mystified guide : " Not so good as 
my father's Cousin Laura's." 

However Natural Bridge with its glory of young 
colour was admitted without question as " better 
than my father's Cousin Laura's," and I suppose if 
anything is better at thirty-seven than it was at 
seven it is worth a dollar. (Note: I'm older than 
thirty-seven but I did want to work in a seven for 

-^222-}- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINIvLED WITH KINDNESS 

the value of the repeated word, and I couldn't say 
forty-seven which would be too far from the truth.) 

W made a sketch while I stretched my neck 

to the snapping point to see who went over the 
bridge at the top. There must be a road over it, 
but I could get no definite information, probably 
for the reason that a number of dollars could be 
saved if one were to hang over and take a real bird's- 
eye view. Birds never pay anything for the finest 

scenery in the world. W said I was hoping 

some one would jump over, which was not true, al- 
though the one time I visited Niagara Falls a man 
had attempted to commit suicide which rendered 
the sight-seeing expedition memorable. 

I was not annoyed that no one jumped over; the 
only thing that made me peevish was the horrible 
Don'ts defacing the landscape. Don't pick the wild 

flowers, vines, moss ! This remote spot is 

hardly the place for vandalism. Central Park is 
made hideous by policemen's whistles warning Toby 
and me that whatever we are doing we are doing 
wrong. I think we will have to move to Chicago 
to secure peace. There the green grass is to be 
walked upon. "It is for the people," as a city 
father once told me, " and when it wears out we 
put down more." A most intelligent city! 

I had hoped to go over the bridge as we left for 
Lynchburg but we never got a snip of it, reach- 

-i-223-i- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

ing Glasgow only to get lost in the smallest of all 
hamlets. It was hard to believe that the main road 
over the last of our mountains could run along a 
towpath of a disused canal. There were log cabins 
along the canal with negroes emerging from the 
shacks correctly dressed for church in frock coats 
and the admired brown derbies. One wonders 
where the good clothes could be kept on week days 
in these single-roomed domiciles so generously 
shared with the chickens and pigs. 

White folk live in these cabins, too, which are 
quite as charming as the Elsie type of mansion, but 
there is an inclination now to clap-board over them, 
keeping out the beauty with the cold. Possibly 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin " has impressed the country- 
men with the idea that quality mustn't live in a 
house of logs, and there would be no use in telling 
them of the trouble and expense New Yorkers in- 
cur to build just such artistic lodges in the Adiron- 
dacks. 

The main road to Lynchburg becomes more re- 
markable as it starts over the mountains. The tow- 
path is abandoned and, entering a farm yard, the 
rocky way begins directly behind a pig sty. We 
could not believe this, and had no one to ask as all 
of the family had gone to church with only the live 
stock in the front yard eating up the peonies. But 
a weary looking automobile issued from the pass 

-?-224!-^- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

and told us to go on but to look out. We did " look 
out," which was the only way to forget a narrow, 
tortuous road harrowed by gullies that made Toby 

seasick. The view was so lovely that W made 

a sketch of the conjunction of rivers which now 
firmly became the historic James. The James is 
majestic at the start, like a royal child, and as I 
watched the picture grow my thoughts swerved 
from the battlefields of the Civil War, from fash- 
ionable cures and simple mountaineers to the days 
of Queen Elizabeth and King James, when adven- 
turesome spirits sailed their little boats up the wide 
mouth of the river — more like a greedy maw than 
they did know — " to seek the pearl and gold." 
Between Tide-water Virginia and our present lofty 
perch lay the flat lands of the South, unbeautiful, 
as we had been warned, but to be visited as part of 
the country which found its " pearl and gold " 
mainly in the furrowed field. 

Somehow or other we got over those fearful 
mountains. We even crossed a car coming our way 
which we had said couldn't be done. There must 
be a special providence for good automobiles — one 
will notice that the dreaded meeting of a narrow 
way is generally made at a turn where the width is 
sufficient. The cars stopped to exchange sympa- 
thies, we loaning the stranger our small tin 
*' growler " which the chauffeur had wisely stolen 

-J- 225 -t- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

from a garage to pour cold water into the 
engine. 

One is pleased to grant him this forethought but 
regrets that it did not extend sufficiently forward 
to have filled his tank that morning. Never, never, 
never leave for a day's run without a full tank. If 
the shops are closed demand a key, break in, or 
don't go on. Unlike a mortal, an engine runs bet- 
ter on a full stomach. Our car, which travels on the 
flat nineteen miles to a gallon, drank up its canteen 
as would any thirsty soldier on a forced march. 

We " looked out," staring about for oil wells like 
manna in the wilderness. There were promises of 
rhododendrons, crocuses were as purple as the eyes 
of heroines, but no habitations sprang up to help us 
out. With a view to distracting, the chauffeur dis- 
covered a pink honeysuckle which was not wel- 
comed as it should have been. " Look in, not out," 
rumbled the Illustrator as though he were a mental 
scientist. At one point it would seem that we 
could go no further anyway for a huge pine had 
fallen across the road. Yet we managed it, as some 
forerunner with a hatchet, possibly Touring Infor- 
mation of the eighth chapter, had hacked off enough 
branches to permit a car to go under the Natural 
Bridge — without charge. I suppose it will stay 
there forever and become a beauty spot. 

In time we achieved the clearings where little 
-i-226-i- 




Till-: KDUK (IF THE DIS.MAL SWA.Ml' 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

stores were irregularly placed, although one can't 
imagine who buj^s of them. They were shut on the 
Lord's day, but at every back door the family were 
eating. At Noala Mr. Cheatham asked us to sit 
down with them and I would have done so but the 
Illustrator felt that the engine should be fed before 
us. We compromised on a photograph as a slight 
return for their kindness, which I must put into an 
envelope and send off this moment. Such pretty, 
well-dressed girls; such a good looknig Mrs. 
Cheatham ! all artistically living in a log cabin em- 
porium. These stores sold everything but gasoline. 
If our car could drink Lemon-nola it could have 
been nourished, if it could use Vick's Croup and 
Pneumonia Salve we might have struggled on to 
Lynchburg, or even a setting of eggs from " im- 
proved hens." It was a pleasure to read of this 
kind of a hen; considering the service they render 
us it is a worthy reform to be taken up by every 
social worker, yet it made no appeal to the motor. 
We went on begging our way like a charity ba- 
zaar until a kind Mr. Rea at Pedlar's jNIills for 
whom we made a slight detour, accommodated us 
from his own private stock. Feeling that he should 
be repaid in some other way than money and 
thanks I struck up a relationship with him before 

W could get around to it. I am almost related 

to the Reas as I have an uncle by marriage whose 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

brother is in a business firm with a Mr. Rea — and a 
very stingy man he is too. 

Lynchburg lay twenty miles ahead, the road 
finely macadamised and heavily tolled by armless 
men who said my branch of rhododendron was ivy. 
The engine was inclined to whiz but the chassis 
was inclined to sag, although this was disputed with 
cheery optimism by our driver. Optimism is like a 
certain religious belief : it cannot mend a bone. Nor 
can it mend a spring whose leaves are undoubtedly 
snapped. " Broken, I thought it," said the Illus- 
trator coldly as we reached the Carroll Hotel in 
Lynchburg. It is curious in what contempt a pro- 
fessional chauffeur will hold an amateur one. And 
for a man to make pictures and make a car go too — 
oh, not at all, not at all ! 

I had the best of it. The clerk at the Carroll, 
hearing we would be delayed until a spring, found 
at a garage, was put on, offered me a comfortable 
room and bath, and refused compensation beyond 
the modest price of a Sunday dinner. How warm- 
ing to the heart are such courtesies! How far 
reaching the results ! It is my belief that every gra- 
cious deed prompts two, and on the good work goes 
like an endless chain, but, as they say in their beg- 
ging letters, " do not break the link." The old 
waiter at dinner carried me far down the room that 
I might see the view from the window. There was 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

a lovely hill to look at with an old white house high 
up on it, and, higher still, a huge painted advertise- 
ment urging one to " Get it at Almond's." 

I don't know as Lynchburg felt as I did about 
the disfigurement, for the city has become, in pro- 
portion to its size, one of the richest in America. 
If one sees a green hill from the rear of the Carroll 
House, one finds at the front window a sky scraper 
quite as successfully soaring. The streets were full 
of well dressed citizens, and the lobby was teeming 
with young men. I never saw so many fine boys. 
It maj^ have been my frank admiration of them that 
occasioned the loan of a room and bath. 

I tried to stay in the lobby long enough to buy 
some illustrated postal cards of the old houses in 
the vicinity, but the news dealer said that they had 
no stock any more and his customers of late had 
developed " just a natural distaste for them." Pos- 
sibly the distaste is good taste, for there is nothing 
more crude than the average illustrated card. And 
some day when the Illustrator and I have time for 
it, we are going into the business ourselves making 
beautiful pictm-es for little money. It may be that 
a postal card even with an old church on it no 
longer placates wives left at home. One of the very 
young men in the lobby who I didn't think could 
have a girl, much less be married, went out with 

W to send a night letter to his wife, 

-i-229-i- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

W was sending a night letter also, not to his 

wife or, I hope, to the wife of any one else but — 
much more melancholy business — to a motor agency 
for another spring. The botanical chauffeur had 
put on the new one without measuring it, and since 
it didn't fit the process of putting on reverted into 
pulling off. " The King of France with forty thou- 
sand men marched up the hill and then marched 
down again." The old spring was replaced and a 
rubber buffer applied that we might at least limp 
on over the red roads among the green pines to 
sleep — Somewhere in Virginia. 

With luck Farmville would be our resting-place 
for the night. The chauffeur, whose spirits were 
as elastic as the rubber buffer, felt that we did not 
even need luck since we had this new appliance. 
He had gone miles — months with them. " Why," 
he continued, breezily giving himself away, " I 
went around New York with three springs broken 
on the last car I drove, and nobody found it out 
for a long while." Unfortunately for us the rub- 
ber effect was of even less endurance than his own 
resiliency. Before we reached Appomattox we 
were sagging again, and as night was coming on 
Farmville was but a dream and any hotel in any 
town a mere mirage. 

While I did not tell those of a mechanical turn 
of mind I was glad that we began sagging before 

H- 230 -«- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

Appomattox as I wanted to spend the night there. 
I wished to see the IMcLean house where Grant 
met Lee. But the town itself was discouraging. 
The Whites stood on one side of the street and the 
Blacks on another as though the old feud might 
break out at any moment. It was the only place 
in the South where I felt, without any historical 
justification for the feeling, a resentment of wi'ongs 
not yet adjusted. I could see in my mind's eye the 
fathers of these idle black men running through 
the little town with blazing torches and the white 
folk hiding in the cellars. I could see the long pale 
garments of the Ku Klux, the draped horses; and 
something more dreadful in a mob of white men 
about a blazing post. 

Perhaps it was the red sunset tingeing the street 
with a thirsty glow that occasioned these hallucina- 
tions, but that is what I saw as we stopped for a 
moment, saw it that once — and never again in the 
South. It was well that we stopped to ask more 
definitely of the JNIcLean house. Since I had found 
a postal card of it at Lynchburg I might have 
written very touchingly of a visit to the old place, 
and of carrying away some jasmine or a magnolia 
blossom. A very respectable coloured man told me 
that the house had burned down some time ago and 
there was very little to see. 

The negroes of the present day are of two kinds. 
-H231-J- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

If both reply in the affirmative should you ask a 
question, one says " yessah," and the other " sure." 
I don't know why a negro hasn't as much right as 
a white man to answer *' sure," but one finds that 
those replying " yessah " are more useful and in- 
telligent citizens, more willing to work and more 
capable. 

Regretfully we left Appomattox, not that beauty 
held us, but that we had not enjoyed the sensa- 
tion for which we had long been preparing. There 
was no sensation at all except to find a hotel before 
the axle became permanently bent. We were now 
in a country without sign-posts and with more forks 
in the road than were ever laid on a table. The 
moon came up, a soft sweet wind blew in our faces, 
and a bed of pine needles was not a discouraging 
reflection. Still we searched for a town to find a 
blacksmith for our car. There might be bleeding 
hearts upon trees but there are no smithies in a pine 
cone. In time we came to Pamplin, a village of 
two hundred inhabitants possibly, most of them 
coloured people going to church. We could see the 
oil lamps hanging in the vestibules and the gay 
dresses of the girls as they hung about with the 
boys just as young people do of any race. 

A very promising darky — promising to weigh 
about three hundred when she was of age — told us 
the hotel was the " grea' big house on yondah," 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

which was so encouraging that the throttle was 
opened with an idea of sweeping up very stylishly 
to the automobile entrance. In two minutes we 
were firmly in the open country again, all three of 
us with our hearts cleansed of broken springs and 
full of the humour of the situation. A perfectly 
strange gentleman then appeared from nowhere, 
and stepping on the running board offered to take 
us back to the grea' big house which we had missed. 
He said he would do his best to see that we were ac- 
commodated for he owned the place and the one 
next to it and the one next to that. But if ever 
three travellers, to say nothing of the dog, had ar- 
rived importunely we were that party. 

The furnishings of the hotel had been auctioned 
off on Saturday and the trophies carried away. The 
new proprietor had taken possession fifteen min- 
utes before our arrival, and our appearance had 
unfortunately been made a day before that of the 
new proprietor's furniture. I shudder to think 
what would have happened to us in a Northern 
town under such circumstances. But the lady who 
was going out and the lady who was going in put 
their heads together and the result was two beds in 
an empty room with staring unshaded windows for 

W and me, and half a bed for the chauffeur in 

Mr. Fells's room. That is all I can tell you of Mr. 
Fells. We never had a chance to thank him, for 

-*-233-i- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

he came home from church late and went to work 
early, and we never saw again the mysterious gen- 
tleman who owned the town. So a little bunch of 
appreciation is waiting to be sent him post prepaid 
when I can secure his name. 

We sat on the long dark porch watching the 
white blotch of Toby gambolling about the yard, 
while the old chatelaine and her daughter went rus- 
tling off to service and the new lady of the house, 
still wearing her hat, prepared supper. They had 
brought something from the farm with them when 
they came in on the " eight o'clock." There was a 
delay in both instances as the beau of the young 
lady was late in calling to take them to church and 
was greeted as " slow poke." But we were too 
grateful to address any one as " slow poke " who 
was getting our supper. In time we all drew 
around the board, father, mother, and daughter of 
the new regime, drinking bowls of black coffee with 
enthusiasm. 

Since the most important event in the world to 
them was the running of their first hotel we talked 
of nothing else. The host had but one regret: he 
had installed an acetylene plant on his farm and 
he must leave it. *' You just turn on the gas and 
there you are," he told us softly and often. " I 
shall certainly miss my acetylene." While we 
didn't say so, we wondered how this moving into a 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

town of such minute proportions could be a gain in 
any way, and we fear there is a tragedy behind the 
abandoning of the farm with the gas. But as there 
was only a gentle complacency in the eyes of the 
man so there was only resolution in those of his 
pretty wife, and in the eyes of the daughter a lively 
interest in whatever lay before her. How wonder- 
ful to be seventeen with all life bottled up and wait- 
ing for us on a far high shelf! How terrible if we 
knew at seventeen the contents of the bottle! 

Having purloined two chairs from the dining 
room, made a carpet of the Lynchburg newspaper, 
and a short window cm'tain of maps we retired by 
the light of our electric lantern and stayed awake 
from the light of the moon. I never thought be- 
fore that one could get too much moon, and I be- 
lieve if boys and girls who walk out in it and stay 
too long were obliged to stay out in it some time 
longer they might develop " just a natural dis- 
taste " for it. The French call a sleepless night 
une nuit blanche, meaning that they must turn on 
the light, but this white night transcended even the 
glow of our host's farm. It enraged me that I 
could lend myself so poorly to the discomforts of 
life, and I think every one of us should go into camp 
each year from a reason no more patriotic than a 
gratitude for whatever home is ours when the camp 
is broken. 

-^235-^- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

I thought I didn't sleep at all but I must have 

for I was awakened by W asking if it was the 

sun or the moon shining in on us. " It is the lark 
and not the nightingale," I made answer, and as 
he knew his birds and poets he set out shortly for 
the blacksmith. But the man who was proficient 
in springs was recovering from pneumonia, crawl- 
ing over to the hotel to show us all how pale he 
was, and advising Farmville where there was an 
obliging smith who would do anything to keep 
travellers from delaying in the town, a more kindly 
intention than the phrasing would suggest. 

We ate at the second breakfast, after the day 
boarders from the railway had gone. There was 
cold pork, fried eggs, hot biscuit, jam and conver- 
sation at the next table. The daughters of the past 
and present menage were comparing notes on life. 
They were crisply dressed girls with no country airs 
about them but almost pathetically naive. 

In confiding their ambitions to each other, the de- 
parting one admitted that hers was to play golf. 
She didn't know why, as she had never seen a golf 
game or a golf ball. " Though of course I would 
know a golfer by his golf bag." It was a poor way 
of recognising a golf player, but this thought only 
dipped into my mind. Occupying all my cerebral 
faculties was the deep admiration for this girl bred 
so far from the dalliance of life that she has never 

-e-236-f- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

heard the chck nor whirr of the soaring ball, yet her 
manner possessed the unostentatious assurance of 
an old civilisation. 

The other girl's ambition was to keep on as well 
as they had begun with the hotel, which was so un- 
selfish of her that I did not regret my moonlit 
couch since it was plain that we were the beginning. 
The soft-voiced landlord walked down to the gate 
with us as we made our way to the car, looking back 
continually at the shabby old house. " But it will 
be right nice some day. I'll put in acetylene — ^just 
turn it on and there you are." I wondered what 
superhuman power had assisted him in establish- 
ing the innovation on the farm. 

We lost ourselves going among the pines to 
Farmville. The only landmarks given us were 
churches, and as there were more of these than 
Brooklyn ever could hope for, we found them as 
confusing as the forks on the road. It was not dif- 
ficult to recognise the coloured churches for they 
were as gaily decorated as coloured churches should 
be, the little steeples resembling the flags of all na- 
tions. It was hard to be concerned over the leaves 
in a spring when they were only steel strips under 
an automobile and not pleasant new ones making a 
much needed shade for this warm day. 

If we had not lost ourselves we would never have 
found Hampden- Sidney. It is a college of unusual 

-i-237-e- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

colonial beauty with an old church across the way 
proud of its hundred and twenty-five years of pil- 
lared strength. Boys in white flannels were go- 
ing in and out of the building just as boys do in the 
larger universities, whistling, singing, and watching 
us out of the tails of their eyes. I don't know 
whether it is the white flannelling or youth that 
makes boys so much alike. There was youth in the 
woods too, avenues of brilliant white dogwood 
among the old pines, shedding an unconscious 
beauty. And this to me is the charm of the young — 
not that inexperience is lovely, but we older ones 
know that with experience this iridescence must 
fade and no powder or patches can take its place. 

I don't know whether the warm friend I made 
at Farmville was a chauffeur or the rich young man 
of the town. It is hard to tell in the South where 
they are all so well mannered. Besides it is almost 
as fashionable for a Southern gentleman to work at 
a trade in these days as it is in England. This one 
went with me up the street after we had left the car 
with the accommodating smithy to see if a certain 
kind of a map could be found. The Virginian 
speaks entirely of localities by counties, yet no road 
maps designate county lines. 

We went into a clothing store to get the map and 
the proprietor said he would run home and bring 
his for me to look at, but he doubted if I could buy 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

one this side of Richmond. As I didn't wish to see 
a Southern gentleman run but hked very much to 
hear him talk, I persuaded him to remain by the 
ribbon counter. Here, of all places in the world I 
learned that Farmville was as historic. Civilly War 
speaking, as any place we would visit, and that 
right over the present show window was still the 
small cannon ball which had been fired at General 
Grant. 

General Grant had not been in buying ribbon 
but was next door at the Hotel Prince Edward 
(named after the county) viewing through his 
glasses the remnant of Lee's scarred troops en- 
camped outside the city. Though they were starv- 
ing they had a cannon ball left, and Grant missed 
it by ten feet. 

This hurried me into the hotel to be introduced 
by my strange new friend to the proprietor, Mr. 
Chick. And in that way I found myself soon after- 
wards in a large upper room writing at a table 
where Grant had wi'itten, where he planned his last 
strategical move before he rode on to face Lee at 
Appomattox. So, after all, the sensation was mine 
of which I had been robbed by the burning of the 
McLean house. Both armies were making for 
Lynchburg, but the Union men were encircling the 
enfeebled Southern troops and at Appomattox 
they could go no further. 

_e- 239 -h- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

Mr. Chick was sorry that he wasn't older, which 
was most gallant even for a Virginian, but he did 
not remember Grant at all, although his old clerk 
who came on at night could tell the whole story. I 
moved to the window restlessly. The Illustrator 
was obligingly drawing this side of the fine old inn 
that he might include the four windows of Grant's 
room which ran along the second story of the main 
building. There was no use importuning him to 
stay if his sketch was finished, but if the sun would 
go under a cloud — ^he was a stubborn man and 
would wait all day for shadows. The sun blazed 
on and I returned to the depths of the quiet room. 

" Yes, ma'am, just as it was," said Mr. Chick, 
" except, of course, the bathtub." 

" What did Grant do when the cannon shot was 
fired at him?" 

" He went downstairs most as quick as the shot 
and smoked his cigar on the lower porch. He knew 
it was the end, though, for them — not for him. He 
reflected an almighty lot, my old clerk says, and 
was right sad." 

The old waiter at dinner could have told us more 
I am sure but he was so deaf that I feared to rouse 
the peaceable citizens at the little tables by stirring 
up old wounds. I did ask once if he remembered 
Grant, but he replied that it was hard to get the 
chicken livers as they were used for the gravy, and 

-h 240 -H- 




SEA RAIDERS INTKKXKl)— THP: "PRIXZ KITKL FRIHDRICH' 
AND •KRUNPRINZ WILHELM"' AT PORT.SMOLTH 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

as some of the citizens snickered I wasn't going to 
gather any more data if nobody buys the book. 

We had corn pone for dinner, a fearfully heavy 
bread of curious shape. I received a religious pic- 
ture once — for knowing my Bible verses — which 
consisted of a grove of trees with manna hanging 
on them. I thought they were sheep's tails then, 
but I know now they were corn pone, possibly two 
of the original ones being apportioned to us at the 
Prince Edward. The dinner was of the best, how- 
ever, chicken in large quantities appearing for the 
first time. We had not met with it before except 
under the motor's wheels, and we wonder if all the 
genuine old-fashioned fried chicken cooks are in the 
taverns along the New England roads; also — why 
is Northern cooking never advertised in the South? 

Mr. Chick accompanied me to the automobile and 
we both looked up at the shot meant for Grant. 
" Yes, ma'am. Then they went on to Appomattox, 
but a lot of the boys had dropped off already, go- 
ing to their homes, too heartsick to see the end, I 
reckon. General Lee had on a fine uniform they 
said, but Grant wore an old business suit with epau- 
lets sewed on it. Nobody knows just what passed 
between them — so many stories have been told. But 
the Southern boys were fed right off, and Grant 
made a great hit with us all when he told the officers 
to keep their side arms and horses. Then Lee hesi- 

-+•241-*- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

tated, for he was proud and didn't want to ask too 
much, or to give away their extremity but at length 
he up and said a lot of the privates had brought 
their own horses to use for the cavalry and artillery. 
And Grant answered direct and abrupt as he al- 
ways did : ' Let the boys keep 'em for the Spring 
ploughing.' Then they went home — to begin all 
over again." 

Farmville was quite a blur until we had entirely 
left it. Then I was jolted into conscious resent- 
ment, for nothing dries up the eyes like indignation. 
I sat tight or as tight as I could and looked about 
me. We were now firmly among the Southern 
farms and I could not wi'ite my mother encourag- 
ingly of the crops. Wheat was once a great prod- 
uct of Virginia but the vast agricultural companies 
of the West have robbed that of lucrativeness ; to- 
bacco they have decided grows best on the lee side 
of the hills in the Northern part: it is not the cli- 
mate for cotton, and I didn't know where the mys- 
terious plants covered with white sheets were do- 
ing well or not. 

Those white sheets bade fair to tease me as much 
as the two doors of the Pennsylvania Dutch. When 
there were sheets about there was no one to ask of 
them, and when people were about there were no 
sheets, those interrogated replying that it was wash 
day. The lovely woods also drove me frantic, for 

-H-242-J- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

they now carried a sign of " Posted " on the trees as 
though the forest were a bad club member, its re- 
missness exposed to the world. 

We finally asked " Henry Hobson " about 
Posted. He was a very old darky driving an ox to 

a cart, and as W wished to sketch him I was 

so hurried into asking him a question that I could 
plunge upon nothing but " Posted," although he 
would have been the very man for " Sheets " of 
which I did not think. But Henry Hobson pos- 
sessed a fund of general information telling us that 
the sign meant " cain't do no huntin'." His real 
lack in knowledge was his home address. He didn't 
know where he lived, at least he couldn't decide 
when we asked for his post office address that we 
might send him what he admitted to be his first 
picture. 

He finally hit upon some place where a letter 
would be likely to reach him, but for once the dia- 
lect baffled us. We had to call upon a white woman 
who knew immediately that Hemy was saying 
Jenning's Ordinary. This remote spot is going to 
cost us a great deal of money as we shall now have 
to buy a county map so much needed in Virginia 
and of so little use in New York City, to find out 
where Jenning's Ordinary is. It had never oc- 
curred to me before that darky dialect was difficult 
to understand. I remember in London looking at 

-i-24.3-f- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

an Englishwoman with veiled contempt who re- 
marked after hearing a young American girl in 
plantation songs: " I don't get a word she says and 
I presume she is singing in the negro language." 
And now I am as a Briton! 

It was late afternoon when we came to Peters- 
burg. Petersburg that Grant failed to surprise. 
Petersburg of the bloody Crater, where action fol- 
lowed by inaction occasioned the useless sacri- 
fice of thousands of lives. Inversely it surprised us. 
We had but a few moments ago left the ox carts 
of the road, the strings of mules and the horses 
three abreast to a cart guided by a postilion. We 
came to a town of paved streets with a something 
at the crossings under a canopy of khaki, a some- 
thing in a uniform on a little throne, like a king on a 
dais, who turned a lever and behold the traffic 
was told to " Go! Go! " while those at right angles 
were urged to " Stop! Stop! " It was a Southern 
traffic cop secure from sunstroke, controlling the 
little army of North and South as opposed to those 
of East and West. 

We went the length of the town, for the hotels 
cluster lovingly about the Union Railway Station. 
It afforded us the chance to look up cool sprinkled 
streets, the residents of which were already seating 
themselves on the stoops of the fine old houses, full 
of exclamations over the heat of the day. But 

-j-244)-*- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

there was still a little country for us in the trees 
of the hotel backyard, the green branches more wel- 
come than the odours of the kitchen which came to 
greet us also. Why are several cooked dishes nau- 
seating when the smell of one is tickling to the nos- 
trils ? There might be an awful warning in this too- 
much-of-a-good-thing idea if I had time to clothe it 
in figurative dress. 

I had barely time to dress myself after so much 
splashing in the two bath rooms allotted us that the 
chambermaid was declaring to goodness that the 
tank am ran over. She was a knowing one in other 
directions. When I asked for some plain white 
soap, ostensibly waving a soiled chiffon scarf, she 
was not at all deceived, but returned with a lump 
of indigo, as well, which she said was mighty good 
for bluing them wite dawgs. We left Toby all 
but starched and stiff to go to the grill below. 

A grill has a gay sound. This was evidently 
the gathering place of the gilded youth, one being 
gathered up and put out of the establishment as 
we were entering. I did my best to add to the 
spirit of the scene, ordering a Tango salad and 
while I am no rounder, I think I was better than a 
phonograph wliich stood in a balcony all by itself 
crying to go back to Tennessee. I kept looking up 
at it all through dinner, until the creature, full of 
so many voices, became an animate thing in a little 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

golden-oak jail, and I wondered where all those 
voices would fly to if they were let out. 

How those who sing into these machines would 
hate the surroundings where they send their lovely 
notes ! It must be that they think first ( first after 
the money) of the happiness their music has 
brought to the shut-ins and to the far waste spaces. 
And one is told that a taste has been cultivated for 
the best by this opportunity of listening to a class of 
music which would have been denied them two dec- 
ades ago. So much for the phonograph, but what 
has become of the girls who used to play the piano 
for dancing class before the phonograph came in? 
I asked W that, wishing to arouse his sym- 
pathies. It didn't. He said they were doing one of 
two things: either accompanying those who were 
singing in the phonographs, or playing for the 
movies with a chance to look at the pictures for 
nothing. 

We went out with our blue dog to wire my maid 
for more shirts. The maid was from Virginia and 
I didn't want to tell her we had broken a spring on 
account of the uneven disposition of her roads, yet 
it was a night letter and I had ten words unused 
even with *' Love from Toby." The Illustrator had 
sent a second pleading telegram to have his spring 
waiting for him in Norfolk and had gone on up 
the street to a drug store which had bespoken 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

itself in advance advertising as we neared Peters- 
burg. 

Its most important sign was that of a life-sized 
young lady with a gentleman on either side of her, 
all three of them looking very angry and resolute 
with the caption underneath: " Going to Chilling- 
ford's Drug Store." One could not tell from their 
faces what they were going there for, but I thought 
the gentleman on her right (her right, not yours) 
had just caught up with them as the other two had 
started off for soda water, and as it would be im- 
possible to shake him the whole evening was spoiled. 

At all events I lingered at the telegraph office 
and the courteous Southern clerk let me have the 
message back twice while I added: " Better clean if 
not cleaned," and, later, " Tie box with strong 
string." So I used all the words, and as the Illus- 
trator bounced back from the drug store with: " It 
wasn't for soda water, there isn't any," I was so 
startled I nearly put that in too, forgetting about 
the advertisement. 

The hotel was still alive before we were gladly 
abed. I doubt if it is ever quiet for Petersburg is 
more like a mining town than one of southernmost 
Virginia. It is not under siege, yet the stir of the 
street is still from men to whom powder is no 
stranger. But they do not ram it down old flint 
locks or pack it into muskets of heavy bore and 

-i- 247 -fr- 



A BAD ROAD SPRINKLED WITH KINDNESS 

long barrel. They make it, thirty thousand strong, 
in a town not far away. In two years' time this 
town grew from fields of buttercups to thirty thou- 
sand souls. All the shops of Petersburg express a 
willingness in the windows to cash Dupont checks, 
and from beyond the doors of every gin mill 
brawlers were availing themselves of the offer. 
There is no sweetness in the main street at all, only 
prosperity. 

And the name of this new strange town where 
gun cotton is made for gasping nations is Hope- 
well. 



248 



CHAPTER XII 

Containing a Church, a Dismal Swamp, and the 

Smell of the Low Tide, Which Rolled in 

Relations. Also Germans! 

We had a fifty-dollar bill to change before we 
could discharge our indebtedness at the Petersburg 
hotel, and while one boy was out collecting very old 
and filthy money, and another was whisking dust- 
less dust off of W for an extra dime, the pro- 
prietor was " registering " surprise at om* going 
over the Jerusalem Plank Road to Norfolk when 
we could so easily run up to Richmond, and from 
there take the James River boat down. 

If he had been in England he would probably 
have said our choice was quaint, and I would have 
returned that he was quaint to think we would take 
a boat when we could take a motor. However this 
route can be adopted, and Toby hearing that the 
road was only passable was distinctly for Rich- 
mond. Even Suff*olk, the home of the peanut of 
which he is extremely fond, left him cold, and I 
did not dare mention the great battlefield on the 
edge of Petersburg that is known as the Crater, for 

H-249-J- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

he is a peaceable dog (in time of war) and had 
thought it was all over at Appomattox. 

Before we reached the Crater we found the most 
interesting church in all Virginia — Old Blandford. 
It is worth reading the history of a religious house 
if only to make one feel how much less heavily the 
parishioner is now taxed by strawberry festivals 
and fairs, and how much of that is of his own 
volition. When it was decided by the General 
Assembly of Virginia in 1734 that a church in 
this vicinity was needed, 25,000 pounds of tobacco 
was levied upon the nearby parish for the cost 
of building. From what I can make out there 
was a good deal of fuss about it, but the Gov- 
ernor finally sustained the vestry and the edict went 
forth, the specifications ending with the time al- 
lowed them for completing the edifice. Also 
at the very tail end: " Stone Steps to each door 
Suitable." 

The vestrymen continued severe. If town halls 
are built out of motor fines today anti-Revolution- 
ary churches were sustained by just such levies. 
I noted that profane swearing was valued at five 
shillings, the same amount " for not going to 
church," five pounds for gaming, and only one 
pound for selling " Oats by false measure at ye 
Bridge." This makes having a church all your own 
the more delectable ; but apart from that I wonder 



tl 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

what the churches would have done if every one had 
behaved himself, and how the town halls would be 
built if there were no scorching! 

Old Blandford, gleamingly restored, is now serv- 
ing as a Confederate jNIemorial Chapel. Every 
state of the Confederacy is represented by a win- 
dow in glass. As I stole about reading the inscrip- 
tions it occurred to me that nothing could be more 
fitting for the emblem of a soldier than these deep 
reds, glorious purples and soft, pallid shades of 
death defying a substance that can shatter, can 
splinter, can be crushed into atoms but cannot be 
utterly destroyed. 

The trend of the dedications catches the fire of 
the ruby glass. All speak of their men " who fought 
for the right." One can find nothing to resent in 
that ; it makes little difference for what you are con- 
tending if you honestly believe your Cause is just. 
But it was strange to find in that quiet little church, 
its burial ground sheltering so many Revolutionary 
patriots who fought for one nation, the flame of a 
resentment that we do not recognise in the streets, 
in the shops, in the speech of the people. 

There is a little tablet to those men who fell in 
the Revolution when the church was young and 
there was no North and South. It must have felt 
very old fashioned and out of place when all those 
burning windows were put in telling the story of 

-^251-^- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

strife, brother against brother. But now, I beheve, it 
is at home again. On the other side of the pulpit is 
a verse lettered on stone written by Tyrone Power, 
a great Irish comedian, the great-grandfather (I 
think) of the present actor of that name. He went 
down on the steamship President about 1844, one 
of that great fleet which left no story beyond the 
fragments of their wreckage. The apostrophe is 
not in very good verse, and I am a little uneasy 
over what might be the punishment for those who 
try to write and are strolling players also. 

The old custodian, who did not bother us at all, 
said there were still bullets found in the church- 
yard, relics of the severe fighting in the effort to 
seize Petersburg. Lee finally evacuated the town 
but it was never taken by assault, although Grant 
lost 10,000 lives in this effort. A few yards beyond 
rise the earth works of the two opposing armies. 
To quote exactly from the volume which is now my 
closest friend, the S. H. of the U. S. : " July 30th a 
great mine was sprung under the Confederate 
works, and for a moment an open road existed into 
the rear of their positions; but here also was mis- 
management. The troops which ought to have 
poured through hesitated, probably through fault 
of their division commander, and the Confederates, 
rallying, were able to drive back with great slaugh- 
ter the assaulting column. This bloody affair of 

-i- 252 -i-^ 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

*the Crater' cost Grant 4,000 lives without any- 
compensating advantage." 

The Crater is now softly covered with green, 
Time's healing hand for the torn earth. We can 
only grow philosophy for the wounds of the heart. 
I wonder if generals ever think of the men they 
have sacrificed by a strategy which they admit to 
be an error afterwards. Possibly they do grieve 
and go on because they must. Lincoln suffered 
intensely through the war, yet when the nation 
pleaded for an exchange of prisoners that they 
might get their sick, ill-nourished boys home again, 
he refused to send back the well-fed Southerners, 
imprisoned North, to fill the depleted ranks of the 
Secessionists. *' I will not exchange good men for 
scarecrows," he said. What it must have cost him 
to say it! For Lincoln, it is my belief, was of the 
*' army of heaven." 

I have allowed myself to talk a great deal about 
Old Blandford church and the Crater because I am 
going to say very little about the road as I wish you 
all to have a good chapter. The garage keeper in 
Petersburg said we could travel over it as fast as 
we pleased, which was a safe statement as it 
couldn't possibly please any one to go very fast. 
Yet the small automobiles of this environment went 
bouncing in and out of the holes full of dust with 
the same abandonment that their fathers dashed 

-e-253-e- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

along on horseback — true dare devils of the road. 
The planks had long been extracted from the road 
to Jerusalem, like an old dog rendered less danger- 
ous with the pulling of his teeth. The landscape 
had many of the elements which one must see be- 
fore leaving Virginia: fine farms worked by ne- 
groes, real swamps, and patches of magnificent 
pine. The cultivated fields would be entirely sur- 
rounding these forests, and they stood like soldiers 
of a lost legion making their last stand against the 
encroachment of an insidious little enemy which 
worked toward them like relentless headsmen, axe 
in hand. 

Firmly in the middle of the road at one point 
we came to a gate which we opened and closed with- 
out any sign importuning us to do so. The mystery 
piqued us, and W walked up a long path lead- 
ing to a farmhouse to ask why it was there. He 
addressed several coloured ladies at the right of the 
house who didn't pay the smallest attention to him, 
but went on with their work as though recompensed 
by the piece. Another woman on the other side 
the house responded to him, however, although — to 
my far off embarrassment — he did not look at her, 
finally thanking those so extraordinarily labouring, 
and returning still under the impression that he had 
carried on a conversation with them. Our driver 
said it seemed sort of uncanny, and the coloured 

-^254-^- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

lady who had replied must have thought him stiff- 
necked if not unregenerate, but it was really the 
effect of quinine which had made him deaf in one ear 
so that he could not locate sounds. 

The quinine was probably superinduced by no- 
tices which the Virginia Health Department has 
tacked upon the trees like Orlando's love letters. 
They give some grim statistics about tuberculosis 
with so easy a preventive that one would think the 
natives could keep their windows open. Yet ( I can 
argue on both sides with perfect ease) it's all very 
nice to have your windows open if you are well 
covered, but consumption of the future seems much 
less uncomfortable than the immediate possession 
of a shivering body. I have two ideas of eternal 
punishment both of which keep me as good as I can 
possibly manage. One is eating at a restaurant in 
a basement full of smoke, noise and a big band 
above which you have to be entertaining to pay for 
your supper; and the other is to " sleep cold." 

The Health Department also tells the habitant 
how to avoid malaria and how to fight mosquitoes, 
and there are some suggestions as to the care of 
cattle which the Illustrator didn't read, although 
the quinine showed the effect of the chills and fever 
warning. The advice is couched in simple language 
so that the people may understand, and there is no 
excuse for these remedies not getting about even 

-J-255H- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

« 

though the elders, like Henry Hobson, do not read, 
for I never saw more country schools, and most of 
them built for lively little darkies. We found the 
pupils tractable about keeping out of the road, as 
are all coloured children. And I wish to ask, in 
passing, if any one ever saw a coloured baby cry ? 

All through Virginia, both by the many Agri- 
cultural Stations and by the many placards there 
shows a fine disposition on the part of the state to 
take care of its children, old and young, and if the 
children themselves didn't have such a " natural 
distaste " for keeping up the roads this atmosphere 
of good- will which continually surrounded us would 
make it a motoring paradise. But here Toby sug- 
gests, " Ain't told about the gate." He seldom 
leaves me now for fear I am not going to get him 
in often enough, and I will put in here that he 
behaved abominably this day, inventing a new 
scheme of leaning out as far as possible while I 
held on to his tail. He knew he was taking the 
basest advantage of me for I would hold on rather 
than lose him no matter how exhausted I was, and 
it afforded me but slight comfort to think that at 
last some good use was made of an appendage too 
long to mark him as a perfectly bred West High- 
lander. 

I am getting back to the gate with what might 
be called a languorous ease befitting the locality. 

-i- 256 -i- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

It was put up by a county that had fences so that 
the cattle could not stray from the next one which 
did not possess them. I wish all the counties had 
gates, then we could talk as learnedly as the natives 
of going from Frederick to Amherst, on to Ap- 
pomattox, Prince Edward and " All points East." 
But that was the only one we ran across, and we 
continued in the " fence county " until we reached 
Courtland. Here we found a new sign forbidding 
us to turn corners any faster than eight miles an 
hour. How few of us have given thought to the 
rapidity of our turning corners both in motoring 
and in life! 

Fearful of whizzing around too rapidly we held 
to a straight line until we reached a hotel. It was 
past the lunch hour, but I walked through to the 
dining room and found two ladies, vague sort of 
hostesses, still talking it over. The Southerners 
have the magnificent hospitality of the peasant and 
the grandee : if you will take what is there you are 
welcome to it. They sat with us thi-ough luncheon 
which a coloured boy, scenting a quarter from afar, 
appeared in time to serve, and the fattest of the 
fat ladies said that her kin had gone to Richmond 
by automobile in two hours. They always say this, 
and no doubt they always do it. Our motor alone 
seems to limp through life. 

I walked across to the jail yard which lay across 
-i-257 -i- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

the street. They were having a very pleasant time 
in the j ail where we could hear loud black laughter, 
meaning the laughter of blacks, but a man who 
was making a house next door said they were only 
just pretending, as nobody was ever really happy 
in jail. He ought to know for he had spent the 
night there, and was set to work upon his return 
to the world through the philanthropy of a builder 
who was short handed. This I learned from our 
driver of whom he had tried to borrow the price of 
a drink for the reason that both of them were from 
the North. He knew little of Courtland as he had 
fallen off a freight train, and, presumably, the 
water wagon at the same time. 

He should have looked from his jail window to 
enjoy the cannon that was installed there alongside 
a monument to the Confederacy. It, too, was a 
Northerner and had also fallen off a train while 
going further South with Union troops during the 
Civil War. But I can imagine it receiving a 
warmer welcome than had the hobo-carpenter. The 
little shaft of marble bears the list of companies 
who had gone from that neighbourhood — a gallant 
number of soldiers to be mustered from such a 
slightly peopled community. And it is hard to tell 
why the inscription, set below what seems to be a 
has relief of fighting gladiators, should run " Sic 
semper tyrannis." Although the motto of Vir- 

-j-258-f- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

ginia, it is hardly a fitting memorial to their 
dead. 

My arms burned through my coat sleeves that af- 
ternoon and at Holland where we all stopped for 
grape juice, Toby declined to re-enter the car. 
" Holland for me," he said ably upheld by the citi- 
zens who had taken a shine to him. " What's the 
fare to New York? " he kept asking impersonally, 
like many a disgruntled actor who has no thought 
of leaving. Although peanuts in Suffolk finally 
teased him on, he forgot them as we waited there 
for a freight train to make up its mind. It is un- 
kind to a coquette to liken her to a freight train, 
but I don't suppose the freight objects to being lik- 
ened to a woman. If it does object there is simply 
no pleasing it. But the way they both giggle and 
cough, run one way then the other, and always so 
the whole town can see it — back and forth across 
]Main Street — is enough to start a scandal. The 
freight train, I believe, has time called on it and 
must clear the way by order of the selectmen, but 
no men, select or otherwise, would tell a coquette 
she is getting a bit tiresome. One may rightly in- 
fer by this that I was not a flirt in my youth, al- 
though I probably longed to be one instead of that 
unfortunate type of girl called " bright." 

The Illustrator would not encourage the ogling 
cars by even looking at them (an attitude which I 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

trust he maintains when coquettes are blocking his 
way), but went down in a cellar after Toby who 
had gone off with a select circle of Suffolk dogs. I 
hurried away to send surreptitiously a telegram 
concerning his slippers (the master's slippers, not 
Toby's, which I had left behind in Petersburg) , and 
the chauffeur solemnly exchanged cards with a 
likely looking coloured boy who wished to come to 
New York to be a chauffeur. He had no training 
for the job beyond the mastery of shoe blacking, but 
he thought it would be mighty nice to ride around. 

One often ponders over the taxi-cab drivers, 
especially as they whiz about corners somewhat 
faster than eight miles an hour. Do they receive 
a " call " to be chauffeurs, is it a mechanical talent 
striving for expression, or is it from a desire just 
to ride around ? The negroes are not good drivers, 
and I wish more of them would stay in the South 
to work the farms, for they seem to have a real 
talent for making the ground smile and the cattle 
thrive, but the lure of the city takes no cognizance 
of race, creed, or colour. 

The young men I would most warmly welcome 
to the chauffeur's seat are those whose weak lungs 
threaten complete giving out if they remain behind 
counters or desks. I became very friendly with a 
taxi-cab driver one night as he put on a tire in the 
heart of Central Park; his intelligence while driv- 

-j-260-?- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

ing and his excellence of speech while talking set 
me to questioning him. I found that he had been a 
newspaper editor with a family to support, and no 
means to carry him to Arizona when he became 
tubercular. So he slept on the roof of his apart- 
ment house and kept in the open air by driving a 
cab, and his physician had already pronounced him 
well out of danger. 

Somewhere along this way W made a 

sketch of the upper end of the Great Dismal 
Swamp while I fought off small embryo chills and 
fever which were trying to bite him. The mosqui- 
toes come early in Virginia, although the hotels 
were so well screened that the guest is not troubled 
with them. They were eerie swamps through which 
one could paddle for forty miles or more, the trees 
having a sort of elephantiasis of the trunks, which 
isn't so remarkable for trunks, considering the ani- 
mal most addicted to them. The water was clear, 
and it could not be stagnant for a planing mill 
was always somewhere on the edge reducing the 
great pine trees into timber for the ugly new habi- 
tations of this neighbouphood. 

It must cause a fine tree much suffering to be 
turned into an ungraceful house. While I know 
it would terrify a carpenter, the most conventional 
of men, to ask him to build you a dwelling some- 
thing on the lines of a tree he might strive to make 

-e-261-<- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

it as beautiful in one form as it was in the other. 
After all, Gothic architecture was suggested by the 
arching of tree tops, and the top of the Corinthian 
column created from the growing up of acanthus 
leaves about a jar set upon the ground, and I don't 
know why, with a little perseverance, we shouldn't 
have houses of arborial shape. 

I am hurrying on to something very interesting 
now so that you will stop wondering if there is any 

such word as arborial. W had been expecting 

the novelty which greeted us, but I felt no reason 
for the sudden appearance of some slight advice — 
which was probably not taken. It was not the ad- 
vice which was important, but the name of the ad- 
visor who had put up the sign. It read: Tide- 
water Automobile Association, and received three 
honks of our horn. It blew like a cool breeze from 
the ocean upon far prairies, for the character of the 
plantation was still most evident. It filled us with 
delight, and once more we thanked the ingenuity of 
man which made the self-propelled vehicle a prac- 
tical machine for the swift embracing of many 
climes. 

Last Summer we took a drive behind that pre- 
historic animal, the horse, and I found myself so 
impatient with the pace that I fear we ourselves 
have developed into machines — of less endurance, 
perhaps, than the previous generation, but tuned 

-i-262-i- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

to go as long as we hold together at something 
faster than a trot. This troubled me, and out of 
compliment to the horse I went to the races this 
year. We all called " Come on! " as the lovely 
creatures neared the finish, but most of us may not 
have been exhorting our favourites to a successful 
finish, rather were annoyed by the old fashioned 
leisure with which they were swinging around the 
track. 

We came upon Tidewater shortly afterwards, 
represented by a spur of the James River which 
had made a short cut through Virginia to greet us 
expansively at the sea level. Between this point 
and Norfolk is an interesting section of the coun- 
try to those who like early vegetables. JNIost of 
those we get in the New York markets come from 
here ; early peas on the night of the second of May 
were being shipped from the vines to reach your 
table ]May fourth. We found something very per- 
sonal in this and wished to pin a note on one of the 
pods to see if it reached any of our friends. 

There are miles of these truck gardens worked 
both by negroes and white men. They cannot spare 
an inch for beauty beyond the lovely orderliness 
of nurtured green things. The little houses stand 
squarely in the middle of the fields without flowers 
or trees — only the luxuries of other people to look 
out upon. We were bidden by one gardener to 

-!-263-i- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

ask of the turn when we reached the Masonic Lodge 
for coloured people whose emblems we would recog- 
nise. We found this easily enough, although the 
building possessed a more striking guiding mark. 
The basement was a place of worship which some 
laboured chalking on a blackboard admitted to be: 
" Church of God and Saints of Christ." 

Several very ebony saints were sitting on the 
steps, chanting melodiously. It was a shame to 
stop them to ask for anything so trivial as Ports- 
mouth, but they stopped of their own volition, not 
so much to tell us of the way but for the reason 
that a piercing and more lovely note than even their 
sweet voices cleft the air. We were all very still 
in this lonesome little settlement, the darkies with 
their heads uplifted while they whispered, " Sho' 
enuff — ^huccome that bird hyah so soon! " 

And " sho' enuff " it was the first nightingale 
of the season which had also managed to give us a 
welcome to Tidewater Virginia. I suppose it is 
really the mocking bird, this Southern songster, 
with some very fine foreign notes which it must 
have acquired by hearing that popular phonograph 
record of the Italian nightingale. But it brought 
me back to a Winter spent in an orange grove in 
Florida when I was eighteen and the world was be- 
fore me. I can see now the black blotches that the 
little round trees made when the moon was full. 

-J- 264 -J- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

The tall pines rose like a frowning wall around 
the homestead; a little lake glimmered at the foot 
of the grove. The scent of the orange hlossoms 
rendered my simple room as exotic as a perfmned 
bedchamber of the Alhambra. The mocking birds 
sang the livelong night, the alligators snored, and 
the pines mourned in the wind because they were 
out of the garden. I planned my life in the moon- 
light. I would not do this — and I would do that. 
Such a thing was out of the question — no, cer- 
tainly not. I'd be the greatest in the world — noth- 
ing else. A king at the door ? Oh, well, let him 

come in. It was all wonderful. I was too old to 
go to sleep — too young to stay awake. 

When we reached Portsmouth where we must 
ferry across a smaller river known as Elizabeth to 
Norfolk, a man ran after us to say we would find 
an asphalted street if we took a turn to the right. 
Of course we wanted to burst into tears at his kind- 
ness, feeling very sympathetically with our 
chauffeur who repeated all through the South: 
" Never saw anything like them — never saw any- 
thing like them." 

W was especially enthusiastic over Norfolk 

as his Aunt Mary Ann had lived her kind and use- 
ful life there, and a number of kin were still about 
with whom he was remarkably friendly. He said 
it was no trouble at all to like Southern relations, 

-J-265-J- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

but I have found out something more remarkable 
than that: it is no trouble at all to like your hus- 
band's relations both North and South. A woman 
may feel a little lonely by this strange affection. 
She will have nothing to talk about with her other 
married friends, but the dazed appreciation of the 
relatives themselves will make up for any loss of 
social prestige. 

W was liking everybody. On the ferry 

boat he felt that he had nothing but friends in the 
crowd about him — if not second cousins. He stirred 
up a conversation with two soft spoken passengers 
over the calamity that was to settle on Virginia 
when it went " dry " in November. He assumed 
that his new acquaintances, since they were Nor- 
folkites, or at least Portsmouthians, would feel as 
he did, and it was not until he had finished his pre- 
diction of the doom of the fair state that both of the 
men admitted they had voted " dry " themselves. 

It never occurred to him that any one he would 
ever talk to could be on the other side. We all 
feel that a measure is so impossible if we do not 
approve of it, and the thought doesn't come to us 
that the vote would not have gone that way if more 
had not wanted the measure than had voted against 
it. I remember when the party that was not my 
father's came into power, and his waking up the 
family to tell us of the election at some terrible 

-J-266-H- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

late hour — eleven o'clock or even midnight. My 
older sister, a seer of twelve, vv^as very positive as 
to our finish. She said the country would go to the 
dogs immediately, and I watched furtively for the 
dogs, losing a little faith in her but enjoying an 
immense relief when we continued on without so 
much as the baying of hounds. 

It was not the Illustrator's only disappointment 
of the evening. It was prefaced by triumph for he 
drove to the Monticello Hotel without asking a 
question, and a question to a man is a confession of 
weakness. He was sure of his streets although new 
car lines going to new suburbs might have con- 
fused him, and tall sky scrapers had replaced many 
of the buildings of his aunt's day. He steered by 
the harbour lights like a true mariner, and, reaching 
port, was greeted by the bell boys as " Cap " as 
though they recognised his early ambition to sail 
up Aunt Mary Ann's creek and take Norfolk by 
storm. 

We did not dine in the hotel for he wished to 
take me out to a magnificent restaurant which he 
had visited when a lad, where the fish were the 
finest in the world and the people assembled there 
the cream of the city. I got into my dinner dress 
fearful that it wasn't good enough, and we walked 
past the old Court House where I found a nice yard 
evidently built for hotel dogs. The cafe of his 

-H-267-^' 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

youth was not as far off from here as he had ex- 
pected it to be, nor was it as large nor in as wide a 
street. And the patrons assembled there I should 
not call the flower of Virginia. 

They were not eating the fish of Chesapeake Bay 
for there was none on the menu, but they had some 
lobsters from Maine, clams from Little Neck, and a 
boiled New England dinner. I ordered cold sal- 
mon which was tinned, and the Illustrator had 
Delaware River shad more full of bones than usual. 

*' It's changed," he kept repeating, " it's 
changed." I doubt if it was ever any better — it 
was just youngness, although I cannot think that 
the blindness of youth is preferable to the keen 
eye of experienced years. 

Toby and I left him after dinner looking from 
the windows of his room upon the harbour. The sea 
has moods, but it keeps up its standard amazingly 
well even to weary spirits. But Toby and I were 
for the white lights of the thoroughfare. Up a side 
street jolly Jack Tars were drifting, and we drifted 
along with them. They turned into the fine build- 
ing of the Naval Y. M. C. A. and as they allow 
smoking nowadays they probably allow dogs, but I 
was not eligible. Soon we girls may get in, for a 
band was playing dance music and it was very 
agreeable even standing on the pavement. 

The sailors moved respectfully out of my path 
-i-268-i- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

as we sauntered up and down, and I thought with 
a lump of gratification in my throat that of all the 
men of Uncle Sam whom I have encountered in all 
parts of the country at every hour of the night, I 
have never met one with an inclination to make a 
gentlewoman uncomfortable. " Underneath the 
Stars " played the band, and underneath the stars 
of our country's flag those nice boys worked, and 
underneath the stars Toby and I walked, feeling 
that everything was all right. A few years ago a 
young man of our touring company was not 
granted permission to enter the Y. M. C. A. of a 
great city because he was an actor. Now the stroll- 
ers come and go with the other young men, and 
the association fulfils more and more completely 
the beautiful significance of the word which modi- 
fies it. 

I did not sleep at first, kept awake not so much 
by the clamour of trolleys as by a high, thin, con- 
stant note which I recognised as familiar but could 
not define. Just as I was growing nervous about 
it the Illustrator flung open my door to exclaim: 
" You forgot to look for Suffolk's greatest ex- 
port!" 

" Of course," I answered oracularly, " it's the 
whistle of a peanut stand," and went to sleep. 

Norfolk is such a fine old city, newly decorated, 
that I should give its history instead of taking space 

-^269^- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

to admit that our first morning there began with a 
dog fight. Yet it throws a side Hght on the charac- 
ter of the citizens to say that they enjoyed the fight, 
and had to scrape up their gallantry with an effort 
to save the lady's dog. 

It was an Airedale who licked him this time. No 
doubt my dog was to blame, he had become more 
and more aggressive as his stay in Virginia had 
lengthened, growing particularly quarrelsome 
when on a leash and being pulled safely into the 
car. As he was still a puppy he had not met every 
breed of dog, and knew nothing of the celerity with 
which an Airedale accepts an invitation. I can't 
say that I came out very well myself for I stood 
screaming at the top of my lungs, " Are there no 
men of honour? " or something like that, culled 
from " The Two Orphans." 

As I said, the men became honourable with a 

struggle, and Toby and W went off to have his 

wounds dressed, he very astonished at the quick- 
ness on the trigger of his opponent, saying every 
now and then to himself " Mercy! Can't a feller 
growl! " He had given up his Southern accent af- 
ter the heat of the day before and was now strongly 
neutral. But it was commendable that in all his 
excitement he used only the sweetest of little 
swears, which ought to have been, but was not, an 
example for his master to follow. 

-J- 270 -?- 




WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS— THE WYTHE HOUSE 
ON PALACE (JREEN. WILLI A^fSBURG 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

We walked in the little park before the old Court 
House after two pleasant young men who had a 
dog shop nearby fixed him up. Our vanity was re- 
stored by an exceptionally intelligent fireman who 
stopped to admire him. In return I admired the 
fireman's city, which, I learned, has many oysters 
but few conflagrations, to the fireman's regret, as 
he was fond of them — and didn't like oysters. I 
hoped he would turn out to be a relative, but he did 
not seize the opportunity which was offered, al- 
though he knew the old Hall where Aunt INIary 
Ann had lived, and poorly suppressed a wish that 
it would burn up rather than fall into disuse. I 
replied politely that if it did catch on fire I was 
sure he would put it out, and I left him struggling 
between aestheticism and duty. 

The Illustrator had gone off with one of his 
family when I returned, and I was relieved to learn 
that the cousin had no Airedale with him when he 
called. A canine Capulet and Montagu situation 
would have been too hard to treat diplomatically 
no matter how much one may like a husband's rela- 
tives. There was a note left for me — not beginning 
with darling or anything, just: " Send out wash. 
Spring hasn't come." This was a phrase which I 
at first took as referring to a season fully arrived 
in Norfolk ; then I recalled our fallen leaves, which 
more resembled an Autumnal condition. He looked 

-e-271-f- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

rather Autumnal upon his return, although a large 
part of the city's business has been suspended while 
the inhabitants went Spring hunting among the ex- 
press offices. 

Luncheon restored him to his rightful heritage 
of years. We ate in the hotel restaurant which 
looks out over the water from the windows of the 
eighth floor. I am always happy when eating up 
in the air. I know the kitchens are equally sunlit, 
and for the life of me I don't see why all hotel 
kitchens are not on the roof instead of in a coal hole. 
The top floor is seldom used except for storage, 
and if there must be a main floor cafe, food would 
not cool any more going down on elevators than 
going up. 

It was not only sun-cooked food that cheered 
us, but the behaviour of the personnel after a very 
inebriated patron had gathered up all of his change, 
piece by piece, while his waiter's face kept lengthen- 
ing like a day in June. As usual we were near 
a serving table. It is not a valued position to many 
women, but at the risk of soup and gravy I sit as 
close to it as possible, gathering conversation with 
grease spots. Abetted by the Illustrator the 
waiters worked themselves into a state of hysteria 
over their comrade's loss of his tip, ending in the 
sudden shower of a dish of small oyster crackers 
on the floor about me. In a snickering panic they 

.-f- 272 -?- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

attempted to scoop them up as the burly figure of 
the captain darkened the horizon, and to my sur- 
prise (a surprise instantly controlled) the dish was 
placed at my elbow with a patient smile as though I 
had knocked them off myself. 

There is only one incident of quickwittedness 
more magnificent than this, the wits being exercised 
by a very bacchanalian gentleman whom the Illus- 
trator was visiting. It was the Illustrator's aim 
to get him past his ^vife's door without exciting sus- 
picion, but the man fell full length in front of the 
severe hostess's portal. Yet though the legs fal- 
tered the mind continued active. Even as he lay 
sprawling he exclaimed sternly : " Walter, I am 
surprised at you, get up." 

They were not dancing on the cleared space in 
the restaurant, but there were many pretty girls 
having luncheon and ready to flit over the floor with 
that detached air which makes one feel dancing is 
to them not an occasion for waltzing with men but a 
natm-al rhythmic expression. A placard on the 
wall positively forbade: "Breaking," and we im- 
portuned the bar waiter as he was the gayest per- 
son about, to give us the meaning of the word. It 
must be that there are more young men in Norfolk 
thanr girls for the Lochinvars have developed a cus- 
tom of breaking in on a couple, stealing the lady 
and dancing off with her. The bar waiter said the 

-i-273-*- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

management didn't like it. I asked him if the 
young ladies liked it, and he was of the opinion 
most young ladies like to be " wrastled foh." 

The Illustrator made a great to do over the re- 
luctant spring, but I don't know how we could have 
stayed a shorter time in Norfolk and not offended 
cousin this or cousin that. It was just by chance 
we met one of the dearest of them, by chance and 
my boasting of his connections. The boasting was 
not to a fireman this time but to a very competent 
lady who came out of the parish house of old St. 
Paul's as we entered the churchyard. There was a 
placard in the graveyard also forbidding " break- 
ing," but so old that it must have had to do with 
flowers and vines and not the new dance obsession. 

She walked with me into the old church while 
W ran away as far as possible fearful of learn- 
ing something historical. She did not oppress me 
with legends, and was not shocked when I asked her 
if old pew doors like these banged during service. 
She said if the children had their way it would 
be like the slamming doors of railway carriages 
when a European train drew out of the station. 
That carried us on to talk of modern travel as 
we stood in the empty church, and, later, walked 
among the graves of the seventeenth century. Now 
that European motoring is at an end for many 
years to come she agreed with me that this 

-!- 274 -»- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

was America's opportunity — Virginia's opportu- 
nity. 

With some of the vigour that her predecessors 
had apphed to the levying of church tithes on deUn- 
quents, she arraigned her state while she yet loved 
it for its poorly-built roads, expressing what I have 
longed to saj^ but have kept silent out of defer- 
ence to the gentle hosts along the way. " Good 
roads," said this practical church woman, " open up 
a country. They bring prosperity to the farmer 
for his produce is in demand. They re-establish the 
inns fallen into decay, and offer an income to many 
a poor woman from the sale of cakes and tea and 
milk. A lady I know in New England has paid off 
her mortgage with braided rugs, but we can't get 
our people to recognise their chance and I wish you 
would put what I'm saying in your book." So here 
it is " in," and I hope the legislators will read it. 

If this were fiction she would have turned out to 
be a cousin, but the next best thing to such a de- 
nouement was her finding the dearly loved relation 
for us in the parish house, working among her 
mother's poor as Aunt Mary Ann had worked for 
so many years. We both thought their alertness 
significant of the times, and as good an asset for 
the continuance of the church spirit as any pos- 
sessed by vestry or clergy. 

When we reached the hotel that night the lUus- 
-e-275-e- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

trator charged me with having neglected to look 
among the glazed bricks for the cannon ball which 
Lord Dunmore had fired from the Frigate Liver- 
pool when he destroyed all of the town save the 
old church walls. I didn't see the ball, although it 
is somewhere in the Illustrator's sketch like a pic- 
ture puzzle, but I should like to know if the last 
Colonial Governor did not feel as though he were 
shelling his o^vn baby when he tui'ned against the 
state he had fathered. 

It was war again that day, not any reliving of the 
Civil War, but an actual living of the present 
struggle. We drove over to Portsmouth to pay our 
compliments to a friend at the Navy Yard, and, ac- 
companied by an officer, went over to the bare point 
beyond the great shops and the shining officers' 
quarters, where the two interned German raiders 
were anchored. I had formed no picture whatever 
in my mind of the appearance of this cloistered 
community of a thousand souls. But my wildest 
imagining could have conjured up nothing as fanci- 
ful as what was presented to us. The two former 
passenger ships stood high out of the water, the 
grey of their war paint worn down to a sort of red 
rust; between the water's edge and the circle of 
American marines, armed with short muskets, who 
mounted guard over these aliens on a strip of 
waste land. 

-h 276 -!- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

Perhaps I should say it had been waste land — 
the scrap heap of the yards. But the United States 
Commandant had given the men permission to go 
ashore upon this dreary strip, to do what they 
pleased with it, to use — since they singularly 
begged for the privilege — the bits of wreckage, old 
sail cloth, old barrel hoops, old timbers which added 
to the mournfulness of the scene. 

And now a Spotless Town stands on the re- 
claimed land, a little town for children to play in — 
which children never see — built by those able hands 
which cannot keep unemployed. There were 
streets and streets of little houses, not much higher 
than a man's head, made of frame, covered with 
canvas and painted on the exterior after the fashion 
of their fatherland. Red canvas chimneys rise from 
each house, wooden storks stand upon the roof trees 
or sit upon painted wooden nests. Each house has 
a little yard, and the wooden storks look down upon 
live ducks swimming in miniature lakes, upon strut- 
ting cocks, upon goats carefully tethered from the 
flowering plants. Und die Gdnse! Ach Gott, die 
Gdnse! standing in front of the motor and hissing 
at us as they had hissed on German roads. 

The barrel hoops were used to make formal gar- 
dens, the flowers bloomed out of the desert, and a 
tiny public park with a fountain was under con- 
struction when we were there. The officers' wives 

'-H 277 ->- 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

who come over from Norfolk daily were plant- 
ing little trees in the park, assisted by the sailors 
during their recreation hours. A windmill was but 
just completed, making its first revolution as we 
were watching it. The sailors laughed and cheered 
as shipwi'ccked men on a desert island must laugh 
and cheer when a sail is sighted. Some of them 
stopped to talk with us in our tongue, for they had 
been stewards when the huge ships of the North 
German Lloyd carried Americans from one 
friendly shore to another. 

It was all like the dream of a little Gretchen — 
then we looked at the massive inert vessels again. 
These simple men of the Kronprinz Willielm, who 
with their companions of the Prinz Eitel Friedrich, 
were making the gardens, had slipped out of New 
York harbour on a foggy night, furiously laid on 
the grey paint of war, brought guns from their hid- 
ing places, and swept the seas of their enemy be- 
fore they returned to the dull incarceration that 
awaited them. Eight of them broke their parole 
and swam across to Norfolk. Since then our gov- 
ernment boats guard them from the water side, and 
since the Kronprinz stole out of New York harbour 
the United States has spent thousands of dollars 
in the maintenance of patrol boats near Sandy 
Hook. They are costing us a great deal of money 
— ^these makers of doll houses. 



CONTAINING A CHURCH 

As we repassed through the navy yards our flags 
slid down at half mast. We stopped to inquire and 
learned that one of the strangers in a strange land 
had just died in our naval hospital. Something 
more than an appreciation of expenditure possessed 
us as we turned our backs upon the Germans. 
They were costing us an unexpected sympathy. 



279 



CHAPTER XIII 

The 'Female Number! We Leave " Sweetie " hut 

Acquire Williamsburg and a Number of Dates, 

Also the Story of Timorous Mary Cary 

We left Norfolk the next afternoon after a full 
evening the night before — relatively, not alcohol- 
ically speaking. A very lovely distant kith and kin 
called " Sweetie " came to see us off. " I don't 

know her married name," I said to W in a 

panic, but he answered that " Sweetie " was suffi- 
cient. He said it so enthusiastically that I imagine 
she was no relative at all, and I could not blame him 
if he had urged her to become one before I crossed 
his path. 

We were going on to Williamsburg still spring- 
less, as the Farmville smith's clamp held. A bank 
president had taken up the matter of reforwarding 
the spring to Richmond where I was also hoping 
to find the Illustrator's slippers. Owing to his ac- 
tivities he had not as yet missed them. While a 
bank president got us started a girl driving a big 
car kept us going. She found us mooning about 
the beautiful new part of Norfolk, which might 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

have been Detroit or Cleveland for all the Elsie 
Dinsmore houses it possessed. 

This was my only disappointment in Norfolk. I 
had abandoned the search for estates like Roselands 
among the southernmost regions, feeling that a 
greater triumph awaited me if I could discover the 
Illustrator's blood in something better than hers. 
But the Hall where they had lived, whose front 
door was never locked for fear of barring out a 
friend in need, was now surrounded by mean 
cabins. The inlet of the river at the back of the 
garden where the children once fished for crabs, 
was filled in, and the family at present fumed in 
what I thought to be over-large apartments, but 
where they felt " smothered." 

The young girl driving the big car said we must 
make a detour to reach Sewell's Point where we 
took the ferry for Newport News, and while this 
was in flat contradiction to what a motoring expert 
told us at the hotel, she was gloriously right. We 
made a detour but missed the ferry, and I took 
off my hat, as we waited for another boat, to trim 
it with new flowers purchased at a five- and ten-cent 
store for twenty-five cents a bunch. 

An old lady in the ferry house admired the posies 
and talked of the poor prices that must be paid the 
flower makers of such inexpensive goods. But she 
said it was the way unskilled workers had to learn, 

-?-281-<- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

and she always found that good lahour could com- 
mand good prices. It made me feel much more 
comfortable over my modestly-priced decorations, 
and when they faded from rose to grey in an after- 
noon I lost all compunction over the investment. 

When the ferry came she went into the negro 
cabin. I had thought her a tanned farmer's wife, 
which I trust will give no offence to the Southerner 
of quality for she was very, very white. I grew 
quite cold on the boat thinking of the unintentional 
resentment that I might arouse by some of the 
things I was going to wi'ite, and I get so cold now 
conjuring up the contempt with which my laboured 
dialect will be received that I want to go shopping 
and never try to be a scribe again. I have always 
said that every one of my literary efforts should be 
prefaced with " Please remember she is an actress." 
And on every program of the plays in which I ap- 
pear should run the pleading: " Be merciful, she is 
a wi-iter." 

" Stick in the negro dialect, if you must, but 
leave the Southern accent alone," comments the Il- 
lustrator, after a horrid silence as he finishes each 
chapter. Just as if poor coloured folks couldn't 
have their feelings hurt too! 

There was sufficient distraction on the boat, 
above it rather, for aeroplanes and hj^droplanes 
were dipping all around us, and I felt suddenly 

-+• 282 -*-. 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

guilty as though the ferry were an enemy to them. 
The Curtiss Flying School is near the ferry slip in 
Newport News. I had not seen one since we visited 
the Farman and Voisin schools at Mourmelon eight 
years ago — the JNIourmelon that has been shattered 
by the German guns. It was so gay there then. 
Flying was a sport, as fashionable as a new dance 
step and as dangerously enticing as a fair, wicked 
woman. At Newport News that day every stac- 
cato stab of the engines above us was as the beat of 
a martial drum. 

The turn at the right for Fortress Monroe and 
Old Point Comfort carried us through Hampton 
where there is a church which every one should see 
and to which we paid no attention. " There are 
some churches ahead you know," remarked the Il- 
lustrator when I weakly suggested stopping. It 
reminded me of a miserable American husband I 
overheard in a Paris agency who was asking his 
wife why they were going on some complex excur- 
sion. " A church is there," she answered severely. 
" Great Scott, Daisy," groaned the tired business 
man, " this is all wrong. I'm a Baptist." 

In Tidewater Virginia revolutionary churches 
were nothing to us. In rapid historical retrogres- 
sion (as far as years were concerned) we had 
passed from ante helium days through the revolu- 
tionary period to that early time dating from 1600 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

when Virginia was but a cradle for struggling, em- 
bryo Americans. 

The peninsula over which we were travelling is 
the same pleasant green land that met the straining 
eyes of the London Company when Captain New- 
port of England made his way up the broad river, 
and founded the first settlement that endured. He 
called it James-Towne, after his King; the great 
river, known by the Indians as the Powhatan, was 
changed to his sovereign's name. Capes Henry and 
Charles, flanking Chesapeake Bay received their 
titles from the two Princes, while James's daugh- 
ter, Elizabeth, drew the subsidiary river at Nor- 
folk. It remained for John Smith — who, I have 
read, entered this new country in shackles — ^to dub 
the strip of land adjacent to our present Fortress 
Monroe, Old Point Comfort. But this last chris- 
tening was in 1608 after he got out of irons and 
began making things hum in the Colony. 

The point of land couldn't have brought him 
much comfort at the time, but a discoverer must be 
gifted with a vision far beyond his century. He 
must have foreseen what a comfort it was going to 
be to those running down by boat from New York, 
or up by boat from the Southern points, and what 
a delight as well, to the young girls with all the 
officers coming over from the fort to attend the 
dances. 

-J-284-J- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

The Chamberlin is the only hotel standing now, 
a highly satisfactory building one should judge by 
the contented expression of the fat ladies on the 
verandas. I refused to stay in it long enough for 
a cup of tea, but was drawn out on the wharf to 
examine hundreds of barrels of crab meat going 
up to New York. I didn't know there could be so 
much in the world, but the dealers can do away 
with one order less for I heard a young woman not 
long ago talking to another on the top of a bus. 
She said she wasn't going to be bored by him any 
longer — that a supper wasn't worth it. " No," she 
reiterated, " his crab meat isn't good enough for 
me!' which I thought was a very fine title for a 
popular song, and admired her as a surprising 
young lady. We must arrive at full years as a rule 
before we prefer the contented dinner of herbs to 
the stalled ox. 

This far end of the peninsula is under military 
rule, a condition which did not fill me with horror 
as it always does in Germany. A sway under brass 
buttons assures the visitor in America a pure glass 
of water, proper sanitation and a certain brilliant 
order which has nothing to do with Don'ts. We 
drove about the interior of the fort, the Illustrator 
pointing out little rooms in the old fortifications 
where he had dined at the officers' mess. (An 
awful name — mess, in common parlance, but ren- 

-i- 285 •+- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

dered neat when applied to the military, as though 
their discipline could " red " up even a table 
d'hote.) Some of the quarters were also in these 
snake-like mounds, the people living under the sod 
as though buried alive. The little windows look- 
ing out on the water side may have once served for 
the Garagantuan mouth of cannon. On high stone 
masonry were the great new guns deadly enough 
for any enemy, it would seem, although the enemy 
by this time is probably trying to develop weapons 
even more defying, so steady is the progression of 
artillery. 

Not until we again reached Newport News were 
we out of military atmosphere and the salt of the 
sea stayed deliciously with us. Troops of horse 
were clattering along the fine road, not cavalry but 
artillery men, I imagine. At one time the choice 
regiments were the horsemen, but the present 
world's war which has dealt so largely in great field 
pieces, may develop a preference to motoring on 
gun carriages instead of sweeping along on horse- 
back. 

It was a piscatorial afternoon for our compan- 
ions of the road. We were constantly passing men 
and women with shining bunches of fish at their 
side like silver chatelaines. It seemed most unfash- 
ionable to be without fish, and we determined to 
have some at Williamsburg, although we would not 

-^286-^- 




THE KUIXED TUW EK AT JAMESTOWX 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

be carrying them about so noticeably. Supper at 
Williamsburg was not as predominant in our minds 
as was Yorktown. This may have been for the rea- 
son that we were not as yet hungry, but we put it 
down to patriotism — something like Toby's cour- 
age in time of peace. At all events we were deter- 
mined to run down from Hallstead's Point to see 
where Cornwallis sent his sword to General Wash- 
ington. Unlike Lee he did not feel well enough 
to offer it personally; unlike Grant, Washington 
accepted the sword through General Lincoln, but, 
later, sent it back by the officer who had borne it 
to Patriot Headquarters. 

At Hallstead's Point where we made the turn, 
a shopkeeper became related to W by ad- 
dressing him as " brother " and warning him of a 
storm. But it occurred to us if 11,200 Americans 
and 7,800 French Regulars had courageously ad- 
vanced on Yorktown, there was no reason why we 
should not do it — especially as we were shut up 
in an isinglass show case. The old town could have 
made little resistance even if our mild machine had 
advanced upon it. INIcClellan at the time of the 
Civil War, largely destroyed what was left of the 
revolutionary houses. Only the Custom House re- 
mains, one of a gentle line of old buildings, to show 
that prior to the Revolution it was the largest port 
of Virginia. 

-<-287-<- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

The storming done that day was by the elements 
which prevented a sketch, although we received the 
attack with soldierly fortitude. I like to " put up " 
with discomforts nowadays. I like to " grin and 
bear it " when pain creeps over me. I like to " sit 
tight " when melancholy shows a desire to render 
my philosophy mere sophistry. So many other peo- 
ple in the world are having a much drearier time 
of it. 

When we find that our funds and our patience 
are a little exhausted with well doing, let us read 
the history of Yorktown where more French were 
killed than Americans; read of Beaumarchais in 
Paris who ran so joyfully to tell King Louis of 
the defeat of Burgoyne that he dislocated his arm; 
read — if we are swollen with pride of birth — of the 
rich farmers in Pennsylvania who let the soldiers 
of Valley Forge starve since the army possessed 
only American notes, and sold their produce to the 
British in Philadelphia for English currency. It 
was at the lowest tide of this bitter Winter that 
the public mind was raised by the news that French 
money and French ships and French men were 
coming over to help. We have raised few shafts 
of marble to France but we are tardily building 
our appreciative columns now — not in stone, but 
in little cars for wounded men, little kits for the 
soldiers of France, and by those Americans — men 

-?-288-e- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

and women — who cross the water, steel instru- 
ments in their hands, red crosses upon their arms, 
and a mighty purpose in their hearts. 

It grew darker as we returned to Hallstead's 
Point, the Illustrator's " hrother " congratulating 
us that we had evidently missed a well-known hole 
in the road. We must have escaped it, he said, 

since we got out of it. W replied that if we 

missed a hole in Virginia this was the only one, but 
" Keep on, brother," called our cheery acquaintance, 
" you'll never be lonesome in Virginia for lack of 
ruts — or friends." And that is the conclusion of 
the whole matter. 

Williamsburg was so dimly lighted that we 
might have taken it for a firefly and gone past, but 
a mysterious voice as welcome as Elijah's ravens, 
called out to go to the left, which we did, passing 
down a broad street with meadows flowering up 
to the wheel tracks. The old Colonial Hotel was 
at supper and it was difficult to get it on its feet 
to show us our rooms. I sat in a long drawing room, 
full of magnificent English Sheraton, while a boy 
in white socks talked it all over with the pro- 
prietor. 

To our horror we learned that there was a 
" boom " in Williamsburg, that powder works were 
going up somewhere near and the builders and en- 
gineers had all the best rooms, so that we could be 

-h289-t- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

apportioned only the poorest ones. It was not the 
poor rooms which depressed us but the fact that a 
settlement of the first London Company, the Capi- 
tol during the reign of the first Colonial governors, 
and the home of a college established by William 
and Mary was about to burst out into ugly pine 
houses. 

I flounced about a good deal over it until our 
host, advancing to our table to apologise for the 
rooms, assured me that the old town would not 
be affected by the powder works — beyond what ef- 
fect the engineers' board had upon the hotel. Our 
host was as pleased as I over Williamsburg re- 
maining intact which was most unselfish of him 
for we learned afterwards that his father, " in 
slave days," farmed 1,300 acres of land about here, 
and one would think selling it off in town lots 
would make some appeal to him. 

I cannot say too often that you must not miss 
Williamsburg no matter what rooms you get. I be- 
lieve it was the merriest, wisest stay of our merry, 
wise trip, and I hope that every effort will be made 
to provide you with the octogenarian darky who 
served us at table. " Only Kemble could draw him, 

only Kemble," murmured W each time the old 

man approached. His approach was part of his 
charm. It was stealthy, it was personal. He was 
not content to come close — he came closer. There 

-«- 290 -i- 



.THE FE]MALE NUMBER 

was a tremendous potent pause before he delivered 
in the smallest of voices the array of viands. He 
never rattled off the list, the choice was offered to us 
in strict order. He had a way of looking all about 
him and then, very close, in his reedy voice: 
" Would you lak a little Smiffield ham? " 

The Smithfield ham was from the table of our 
host who was giving a part}'', but as they had de- 
parted we gratefully ate the crumbs which fell 
from the rich man's table. " Would you lak a 
little pineapple ice?" confided he questioningly. 
We were torn between satisfaction and despair that 
for three meals we would have this strange creature 
to enjoy yet must suffer from internal laughter. I 
suppose if one could say " You're awfully funny, 
let me laugh," one wouldn't care to laugh at all. 
" He's not funny, he's not funny," I kept repeat- 
ing to myself. Then he would creep up to me, 
look around the room and whisper " Would you lak 
a little cup of coffee? " and I would choke on the 
fish bone of the fish we didn't have. 

I went to sleep with the bell of Bruton church 
chiming a decently early hour, a lovely bell into 
whose casting must have gone the hatful of silver 
which Queen Anne is said to have contributed to- 
ward its making. Some time in the night the en- 
gineers came clumping up to their rooms. Once 
before, in a wild mountain town of Sicily, I had 

-^291-^- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

slept with my door unlocked, failing on that night 
as on this one at Williamsburg to have a key, and 
on both occasions bewildered gentlemen have 
" made to enter." Each time I bitterly reproached 
them and each time the gentlemen have run hur- 
riedly away, but in Tidewater Virginia there was 
no cry of " Scusa, Signora, scusa," as they hastily 
" beat it." Through all this, Toby the watchdog 
slept peacefully, although both he and the Illustra- 
tor complained of a bad night, fighting battles of 
Yorktown for beautiful ladies. 

I awoke with the sun in my eyes and the fair view 
of the Court Green spread out before me. In the 
middle of it was the Court House of 1769, said to 
have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren. But- 
tercups daringly offered their gold to the honest 
jurors within; the blossoms beckoned us out and 
rose in yellow waves about Toby who leaped 

through the alluring bath like a flying fish. W 

made sketches with our host obligingly standing in 
the picture for " scale." It makes little difference 
what you draw in Williamsburg for every house is 
historic and every one is a composition. If an artist 
is doing the old Powder Horn from which Lord 
Dunmore purloined the powder that blew the can- 
non ball into St. Paul's of Norfolk, he is fearing 
he had better hasten to the old Wythe house where 
Washington once lived. If he begins on the Wythe 

H-292-H 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

house he is itching to get at Bruton church next 
door, and while he works upon Bruton he prays 
the creator of good architecture to keep the Poor 
Debtors' Prison from faUing into dust before he 
gets around to it. WiUiamsburg is so full of old 
things that one may neglect to look at the monu- 
ment to the Confederate dead, the first I have ever 
seen to bear an inscription of modern poetry. It 
is for all time, this prayer: 

" 'Lord God of hosts, be with us yet. 
Lest we forget, lest we forget'' 

Old Bruton church faces this Green, restored to 
its form of 1715. The great churches of Europe 
were frequently built on the site of a Greek temple 
which gave place, as the centuries rolled on, to a 
mosque, and with the growth and power of Chris- 
tianity to a place of worship for our present simple 
religion. In America the buildings have gone 
thi'ough many metamorphoses, but from logs to 
frame, from bricks to stone they have been from 
the first the church of the belief of our fathers. 
These churches of four centuries bring to me a. 
feeling of permanency in the religion itself, a re- 
ligion which may change its form, its dogma, and 
its method of expression but remains as much a part 
of the earth as the site of the old and still older 
Houses of God. 



,THE FEMALE NUMBER 

It is interesting to note the difference between 
the rich character of those Virginia churches estab- 
lished by the London Company — and their succes- 
sors — and the severe ones of the Puritans and those 
corporations whose departure from England was 
coincident with the boats sailing to Virginia. To 
the South they brought the customs of England, 
indeed are clinging to them now. In New Eng- 
land they abandoned all hint of court life as quickly 
as possible. It may have been the influence of cli- 
mate for the settlements of both localities endured 
through incredible hardships. But I should like 
to have seen how the Puritans would have disported 
themselves had they gone to the lotus eating coun- 
try instead of a land with a diet of rocks. 

England must have kept a soft spot in her heart 
for the Southern Virginia apportioned by James I 
— that bounteous dispenser of land which was not 
his — to the London Company. This included all 
the territory between the Carolinas and the mouth 
of the Potomac, while the Plymouth Company 
were granted the other part of Virginia extending 
north as far as Nova Scotia. Gifts of value were 
made the church at Williamsburg. Yet it may be 
the lofty Governor's pew, raised a little above the 
plain people, with its fine canopy of crimson vel- 
vet which enriches Bruton church. The word Gov- 
ernor is very high sounding in itself. On the can- 

-^294-^- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

opy is now emblazoned the name of Spottswoode, 
as the present church was built under his adminis- 
tration. 

The old slave gallery has been torn down, but 
the one at the rear is still, according to mandate, 
" assigned for the use of the College Youth," to 
which there is to be " put a door with a lock and 
key, the sexton to keep the key." I don't know 
whether it was to lock the students in or out, but 
they carved their initials on the wood of the pews 
in front of them with the vandalism of youth, and, 
doubtless, watched the minister shift the pages of 
his sermon from one side to another, until, oh fear- 
ful joy! there were more on the finished side than 
on the stack yet to be thundered aloud. 

Lord Dunmore also sat in that gallery as the 
revolutionary storm gathered and the Governor's 
big square pew became an uncomfortable resting- 
place for a man who was undoubtedly plotting 
against the parishioners as he listened to the Good 
Word. As a family who served its country well, 
our hotel landlord's name is on a bronze tablet of 
the pew next to the Governor's, and while I should 
appreciate the honour of occupying one of these 
conspicuous boxes, I should prefer Lord Dun- 
more's latter j^lace among the gallery gods for com- 
fort. These seats of the mighty face the congrega- 
tion, and it would be impossible to take forty winks 

-h295-i- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

without rendering myself liable to a fine of five 
shillings for " sleeping in ye Church." 

The old churchyard encourages slumber, and 
when I go on my last little excursion, to return no 
more, I trust it will be to some such quiet country 
place. These great graveyards about New York 
with all one's friends passing them for week-ends 
in Westchester County would not be conducive to 
the serene spirit. There are all kinds of men and 
women in Bruton churchyard: lords and ladies, be- i 
loved wives and lamented husbands, some of 
George Washington's people, and on the monu- 
ment of the Semple family an inscription to 
" Mammy Sarah. Devoted Servant of the Fam- 
ily." So with this Catholicism perhaps I would be 
let in. 

At the far end of Duke of Gloucester Street 
stands William and Mary College, the second old- 
est institution of learning in America, from which 
such able men have been graduated that it is hard 
to believe they were ever boys like those of today, 
going about the grounds with or without white flan- 
nel trousers (you understand me, of course). I 
viewed them respectfully. " Presidents? " I asked 
myself. If they had understood and returned " No, 
good mechanics," it would have been quite as im- 
pressive an answer. We stared at William and 
Mary College most thoroughly for we were feeling 

-?-296-?- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

guilty over not seeing Charlottesville where is sit- 
uated the University of Virginia. The roads were 
not promising for this trip, and when one writes a 
book for motorists I suppose their interests should 
be considered. 

If I fail in disclosing a motor tour I had better 
close the shop for it is impossible to please the 
reader when I burst into history. Either I am never 
right or the other histories are always wrong. I 
am often taxed very sharply for it, but I should 
think the fault finders would be glad to discover 
how much more they know than I do. The most 
cherished history of my recollection is a serious vol- 
ume that has a Confederate General fighting three 
years after it has killed him. I always breathe a 
sigh of relief — and I am sure the reader must also 
• — when I have hurdled over the dates and am lop- 
ing easily along the road of personal incident. 

Even though I was happy on Williamsburg 
Greens (there are a number of them) I was anxious 
to get back to luncheon to have another peep at the 
cautious and confidential servitor whose years were 
too many to remember even if one were told them. 
Possibly I would have had more control at lunch- 
eon if our host had not mixed us what was known 
as a " sideboard toddy." I can say nothing of it, 
like the charm of a woman it cannot be analysed, 
but I know that you get it at the sideboard, al- 

-j-297-<- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

though you do not leave it there. It goes into the 
dining room with you and makes you laugh at the 
waiter while you pretend you are laughing because 
your husband eats so much. " Have you a green 
vegetable? " asked the Illustrator. The ebony an- 
tique crept close, looked about, tucked down his 
head and confided that he had — it was spaghetti. 
I left before he asked if I would " lak a little piece 
of pie," although the cooking was so excellent that 
I wanted it. 

I hunted up the landlord to make sure that 
George Washington had wooed the Widow Custis 
in Williamsburg. The hospital now stands on the 
place known as the Six Chimney Lot where he is 
supposed to have been formally accepted. One 
cannot blame him for proposing with all those 
chimneys about and few of us women are able to 
hold out against the sympathy of a brick fireplace 
— not the kind with a Japanese fan in the grate, 
but one with glowing logs and a clean swept hearth 
to assure the gentleman that you are tidy. 

I did not find the proprietor making up our ac- 
count, as the hotel very amiably took care of itself. 
He was standing at an old desk in a room where 
the young people had been dancing the night be- 
fore. A litterateur should call on the old desk at 
this point and ask wh^t it thought of the new going 
about in a circle, heart to heart, but I reach a stage 

-f-298-«- 










BRUTOX CHLTvLlI. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER STREET, 
WILLIAMSBURG 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

in writing when a figure of speech becomes nauseat- 
ing. Why say " she was like a soft bird," when the 
heroine in no way resembles a bird ; why insist that 
the sea " was like a hungry monster," when this 
large body of water is like no rapacious beast of 
our acquaintance or imagination? Why should I 
apostrophise this piece of furniture, shouting out 
" Old desk, what do you think of the turkey trot? " 
when it has never thought anything and never will. 
Here is something for the reader to think of in- 
stead : granted that the old desk ever had eyes and 
had witnessed only a minuet in its best days, who 
was the dancing man who first put his arm about a 
woman and galloped off with her? Where did he 
live? What did they do with him? Did all the 
respectable old desks hurl themselves upon him and 
crush out his life for this indelicacy? How did 
round dancing become the fashion? This is really 
something to answer. 

To get back to my story as fast as the memory of 
the sideboard toddy will permit, my host not only 
verified the story of the Six Chimney Lot, but 
claimed that Williamsburg witnessed George 
Washington's other hotly plied suit. I stopped 
him. One can never believe that his or her father 
has ever asked any woman but his or her mother 
to be his wife, and short on history as I am, I had 
not heard that the father of our country had loved 

r-h 299 -i- 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

or thought of loving any one but Mistress Custis. 
I was shocked. One-half of me urged that I go 
away but the sideboard toddy half insisted upon 
my remaining. 

" Yes," continued our landlord, rubbing up the 
mahogany a bit, " he may have made love at this 
very desk." 

With great control I held my sideboard toddy 
breath. " Was it his desk? " I asked. 

" No, it was Mary Gary's." 

Now I didn't know who Mary Gary was, but it 
was the dearest of names and I wished to hear more 
of her. I took up a little piece of chamois and 
rubbed away at my side of the desk too, and a glow 
came to the surface which, if I had not been so sick 
of metaphor, I would have said was " like a blush." 
For Mary Gary was a lovely girl when Washing- 
ton came visiting to Williamsburg, and she had 
other articles beside the desk, for they were a proud 
family of name and wealth. They were so proud 
that Mary Gary didn't think much of a Washing- 
ton named George offering his hand in marriage. 
He was a young man, a surveyor, very nicely con- 
nected, still — not a Gary. 

So George went away leaving Mary alone with 
her desk. But one day he came back, only this time 
he was not surveying anything, not even his chances 
at Mistress Gary's hand. He wore a three cornered 

-J- 300 -J" 



THE FEMALE NUMBER 

hat, and a brave uniform, and he was riding at the 
head of his men — his country's men and his. JNIary 
Gary was standing in the crowd. She had not ex- 
pected him. She had not thought of the surveyor 
and the brilliant young officer as the same man. 
Possibly she did not ever wear her best gown. And 
then I asked our host what she did when she saw 
him. 

There was only one thing for her to do under the 
circumstances. You may not agree with me. You 
may think that her manner of showing her emotion 
would have been more fitted to women of the INIiddle 
Ages or more graceful in the period, and costume, 
of young Queen Victoria, but I feel that there was 
just one thing for Mary Gary to have done. I 
feared it would happen to me myself if he didn't 
answer as I expected. But the most excellent 
Southern gentleman did not fail me. He told me 
when she saw her lost lover going by in all his splen- 
dour, all his promise — 

" Mary Gary swooned away." 



301 



CHAPTER XIV 

Jamestown — Tlien Northward Ho! A Little 

Quarrel with the Illustrator and Our Best 

Homage to a French Soldier 

The luggage was put on immediately after the 
noon meal with the idea of running over to James- 
town, retracing our steps and going on to Rich- 
mond — a simpler process for reaching the settle- 
ment than was employed in 1607. I had said some- 
thing casual about remaining in Jamestown if we 
liked it to the young man in white socks (another 
pair, I am sure) , but he was too polite to show how 
much he despised me. 

Through lack of any advance preparation from 
a guide book I had thought Jamestown was still a 
village, dull in Winter, perhaps, but where people 
might go in the Summer. The Illustrator said 
(after he had seen it) he knew all the time that 
there were only several monuments, a custodian, 
and a church tower to represent the planting of 
the F. F. Vs. He said I ought to have " sensed " 
it. But the only thing I sensed in advance was 
the possible disadvantage of spending the Summer 

-J-302-J- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

in any vicinity that the first white man would 
choose for a settlement. Since the early settlers 
had no compunction about doing away with the In- 
dians I should think they would have located in 
the villages they devastated. The Indian lodges 
were ever the healthiest points of a countryside, and 
the victor could always bury the Indians murdered 
in their tepees, if they were found objectionable. 

But, no, it is hard to tell white men anything. 
They did not fear mosquitoes, and they drank the 
salty water of the James for two years before they 
dug a well, but they dreaded the Spaniards, and 
they moved further and further up the river to this 
marshy spot. Here they settled because, among 
other reasons, a natural moat was found where a 
castle could be built. I think that was very British. 
But there were no castles erected, and after years 
of sickness, and replenishing of human stock, some 
of the emigrants moved inland to what was known 
as the jNIiddle Plantation, and is now healthy Will- 
iamsburg with the enchanting old negro to wait on 
the newcomer. 

The run of seven miles has a sort of end of the 
road air which should have suggested the discon- 
tinuance of life in Jamestown. Produce wagons 
were all going in one direction — to Williamsburg — 
as though the chief care of the country was to keep 
the students of William and ]Mary fed, and there 

-»-303w- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

was in this trafficless region a feeling of antiquity 
which I was putting down to my own weight of 
years. But Jamestown is a very good place to go 
if you care to feel young by contrast. That is, if 
you do not count the chapel which has been joined 
recently to the old church tower. 

The A. P. V. A. put it up, which would sound 
like a Fenian society if the V. were out, but tran- 
spired to be mostly ladies who had formed them- 
selves into an Association for the Preservation of 
Virginia Antiquities. Still the chapel with its new 
bricks glazed after an old fashion is not disturbing, 

and W sat himself down to make a sketch 

under the impression — I think — that John Smith 
had carried the bricks from England. A mocking 
bird sang for him, and a lady walking through the 
buttercups from one country house to another said 
that when she gets to heaven she hopes the streets 
will be paved with just such gold. It made me envy 
her a little, so many people are just as sure of 
heaven as I am uneasy over acquiring another 
place where I will eat in a noisy cellar and sleep 
cold. 

There are two fine monuments in Jamestown. 
One is a statue of John Smith. It may not re- 
semble him but it is looking as he ought to have 
looked anyway. It is a glowing thought that this 
sturdy captain of the plain people forged ahead of 

-?-304-e- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

his aristocratic mates by sheer merit. He is our 
most consistent American as we measure a man in 
this day. Across the field rises the obelisk the 
United States has erected in commemoration of this 
settlement. With the exception of the Washington 
monument and that of Bennington, Vermont, it is 
more satisfactory — to me at least — than any in this 
country. The shield of the United States is the 
only form of decoration. We are spared allegorical 
sculpturing around the base; wounded soldiers, 
loyal Indians, weeping mothers, and comforting 
babies are withheld. We do not need heroic figures 
in stone to exemplify the history of our country. 
They live in our hearts, and they are living now in 
the flesh. John Smiths are still among us, homely 
men of humble birth, unappreciated during their 
lifetime, perhaps, as was the John Smith at James- 
town, but giving strength to a nation that is most 
fittingly represented by a tall shaft of undecorated 
stone. 

After a half hour of Jamestown as it is, one can- 
not countenance the thought of a present existence 
in any other form. A moving picture house op- 
posite John Smith's statue would have been too 
dreadful to entertain. This deserted fragment of 
land on the edge of the wide river served its time 
and its purpose. The settlement dug its toes into 
the soil of America and held on. The tide of the 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

James rolled in with more and more boats as the 
century grew, and the first Virginians, having se- 
cured foothold, found the land to be firm beneath 
them, and marched onward and inward. 

We ourselves were about to march upward — not 
heavenward, I lay no claim to that, but, after 
Jamestown, the nose of our engine was to sniff the 
breath of Boreas until it drew up before our apart- 
ment correctly facing west — or the policeman 
would get it. If I had not seen Jamestown I would 
have felt that our tour of inspection (dealing with 
the beginning and the struggle, but, thank the 
powers, not the end of American life) would not 
have been complete. Richmond and the larger 
cities, which are the crystallised worth of a coun- 
try, lay ahead. 

I reseated myself in the automobile and spoke to 
the Illustrator nearby. He was sketching busily, 
too much of an artist to lend but half an ear, too 
much of a mechanic to interpret correctly what the 
ear received. " It's a lovely tower, isn't it? " I said, 
paying a last tribute to the Jamestown relic. To 
which he answered, " It uses mighty little gaso- 
lene," for the Illustrator meant his car. 

"Skoal to the Northward Skoal!" Yet the 
Southern sands on the way to Richmond paid us the 
graceful compliment of attempting to retard our 
departure. We were slewing around in the midst 

-H 306 -*- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

of it when we met another car which we were pass- 
ing without any great exchange of confidence until 
each party discovered simultaneously the other's 
New York number. Then we burst into speech as 
though we had never seen a New York number be- 
fore, telling things that I am sure we would never 
have given away had we not been reduced to com- 
plete friendliness by the Southern examples all 
about us. They said the road grew from better to 
best, as though bent on reform, and as we could as- 
sure them of something finer than a good road the 
exchange of news items was a fair one. 

They passed and we continued northward. Lit- 
tle tingles of longing for I knew not what were en- 
gendered by that cream background and blue let- 
tering. Yet it saddened me to realise that we were 
seeing the last of the ox teams, the last of the pos- 
tilions — of the mule strings. The smoke houses 
for the pigs had disappeared. There were no more 
sheets tacked down over what I learned at Will- 
iamsburg had been little private stocks of tobacco 
plants. The dogwood was still blooming among 
the old pine trees like children at a gro^vn up party. 
Blue forget-me-nots — a very pretty " pour prendre 
conge " — made their appeal unnecessarily, and 
young holly with its prickles all soft green re- 
minded us that the South would again be with us 
at the snowy holiday time. 

-i-307-i- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

Promptly at Sistersville the road, under their 
gentle influence, mended its way — as they would 
say in vaudeville it was a very good Sister Act. We 
moved on so quickly to Seven Pines that we might 
not have recognised the great battleground had not 
the tiny hamlet of that name actually possessed 
seven pines which were too magnificent to pass un- 
noticed. How seldom do places of the present day 
live up to their original nomenclature. There are 
no Indians in Indianapolis, no Minnies in Minne- 
apolis and no sisters in Sistersville possibly. But 
here the seven pines are as sentinels before the great 
National Cemetery. The battlegrounds are at the 
left of the road as we go toward Richmond, but one 
need not dig for relics as there is a small exhibit by 
the town pump, presided over by no one, contain- 
ing everything that the souvenir hunter may 
desire. 

Only the honest man may enter this shop. A 
small sign above the coin box is displayed on which 
the visitor is told that he must put in five or ten 
cents or he can't look at the relics. I don't know 
how he is to be prevented since there is no caretaker 
about, unless he is stricken by blindness for his diso- 
bedience. I was fishing for five cents, thinking I 
would look a nickel's worth, and if I liked it put in 
another five cents and look some more, when my 
eyes fell upon a set of false teeth. So I dropped in 

-^308-e- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

a penny as they were not very good false teeth and 
beat a retreat. 

It is characteristic of life that we had our first 
puncture while sailing along on a perfect road at the 
edge of Richmond. We went into a small grocery 
store to telephone about the spring — which was 
awaiting us by the way. This arrival of the spring 
was not " by the way to" W or the chauf- 
feur, but very much so to me at the time, for there 
was a condition of affairs in the grocery store that 
I had met with more than once among the poor 
whites in the Old Dominion. The condition has 
greatly puzzled me. The proprietress divided her 
attention between customers and her baby whom 
she " minded " with an industry and a sweetness 
that is the invariable attribute of the Southern 
mother. 

Her fine skin shone with soap, her lovely hair, 
too white for one so young, was neatly dressed, her 
children were equally decent. Yet the chaos of her 
surroundings was unbelievable. Now a Xew Eng- 
land woman would not be able to endure the dust of 
her surroundings, or if she endured it she herself 
would be a slattern. She is more apt to err in the 
other direction and sacrifice her own appearance to 
keep her house clean. 

I know that the women from the upper strata 
of the Southern States are magnificent liouse- 

-e-309-<- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

keepers, but I write this down because I have hon- 
est days. And I have felt so nervous since I have 
written it that I have looked in the ice chest twice 
and am none too satisfied with my own house- 
keeping. 

The entrance to the city of Richmond is like the 
entree to its fashionable life — heights to climb, then 
a wide extending welcome. Unfortunately the Jef- 
ferson Hotel remains conservative no matter what 
letters of introduction you may carry. You may 
have a crest on every piece of silver and a First 
Family on your right and on your left, but if you 
have a dog on a leash you will have to move on. 
The Illustrator advised my trying to " breeze 
through," but I could breeze no further than our 
names on the register. It was uncomfortable as 
his shirts had been sent there. Even as they were 
vigorously erasing our infamous appellations I was 
asking timidly for a parcel. 

It was handed to me! The strong string which 
I had advised by night letter had been employed, 
but the box, owing to the brutality of the Parcel 
Post, had almost entirely disappeared. Sleeves and 
shirt tails floated in the wind that my rapid exit 
created, and the patterns seemed gaudier and nois- 
ier than fancy could conceive. I felt as though I 
were carrying a brass band in my arms while it 
played the " Washington Post." 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

" Here is your laundry," I said to W throw- 
ing it at him. " If these shirts had come by my 
express company I wouldn't have been so humili- 
ated. And here is your dog." I always called Toby 
his dog when things went wrong. 

The Illustrator was perfectly undisturbed as he 
found all the shirts there, liking their designs, and 
asked where were the letters. I had forgotten to 
ask for the letters. I was inclined to reply that 
there weren't any, but bethought me to advise him 
to " breeze through " himself and see how he liked 
it. He did this, the lofty air with which he must 
have approached the desk still sticking to him upon 
his reappearance like a coat of shellac. He said 
they were very courteous to hi77i, and at this I 
roared back if thej'^ were so courteous he could re- 
turn to the desk once more to ask for the slippers 
which I had wired to have forwarded from Peters- 
burg. Then all the courage went out of his eyes. 
He said it was an imposition to the hotel. He said 
he never liked the slippers anyway. 

The chauffeur finally went after them. I haven't 
said very much about the chauffeur of late as he 
was a young man and I have been dealing chiefly 
with antiquities. But we had found as time went 
on that there was an advantage in possessing a 
driver who was more emotional than mechanical. 
If he had not recognised the wild flowers, the birds, 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

the people, and the weather signs he would have 
been unconscious of the emotional storm which 
threatened to dampen the spirits of his employers. 
With maddening sweetness he went for the slip- 
pers, remaining away so long that we both had time 
to regret our bad manners. As often before, I de- 
plored the free airing we give our grievances 
in the presence of those who are serving us, while 
they keep their affairs from us like a sealed 
book. 

He returned with the slippers and a great deal of 
information about the Jefferson Hotel gleaned in 
his cheery way from the clerk who was erasing our 
names. The hostelry can afford to be independent 
for it is endowed, a sum settled no doubt by a dog 
hater or at least by one who felt that dogs and 
women should be " in the home." But this unusual 
inn had rather a wise objection to canines. It was 
not that they greased the carpet with their food, but 
that they frightened the servants, and prevented 
the strict order of their duties. I know if I were a 
chambermaid entering a room with my pass key 
and hearing ever so small a dog growling under 
the bed, I should cease to be a chambermaid in- 
stanter. 

The maids at " Murphy's " are brave, however, 
and as the rooms were good, the embarrassing shirts 
still clean ; as there were three checks in two letters, 

'-h 312 -f~ 











J 



LEE'S HEADQUARTERS— SPOTTSYLVAXIA COURT HOUSE 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

and the spring had come we found Richmond as 
absorbing as it had always been. We were to put 
it to a new test. We were to see it this time without 
a circle of soft-voiced friends surrounding us. We 
could not see them and the monuments. Like all 
citizens they believe in but do not visit their show 
places — leaving that to the trippers. Some day I 
am going to take a sight-seeing wagon in New 
York and find out Who Is Who on Fifth Avenue, 
also the history of the statue I heard a barker call 
" Jane dark " who rides so beautiful a horse on 
Riverside Drive. 

Possibly it was the arrival of both of the springs, 
vernal and steel, that rendered the city as friendly 
without acquaintances as with them, but we found 
ourselves well employed and unlonesome. I am not 
so sure that a Northern city can so extend intan- 
gible rays of hospitality to a stranger. With a con- 
trol that was mighty the Illustrator kept away from 
a certain famous club in a wide Colonial mansion, 
and it was very comfortable for me to know when 
he went out that he would undoubtedly return. I 
limited myself to walking past a fine old house 
where my friends were sitting on the front steps 
after the manner of the South and the West. A 
mellow voice reached me, the owner of it talking 
away airily as I had first heard him from a steamer 
chair next to mine a long time ago. I remember 

-i- 313 -f- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

he was telling some one of his mother taking the en- 
tire family of children to London, and of the atten- 
tion they commanded in Hyde Park as they walked 
with their old coloured mammy. He was a big 
enough boy to recall but not to understand the 
severe expression of the Londoners when the old 
black nurse, upon interrogation as to her charges, 
would admit proudly: " Dey am Miss Ellen's 
chil'ren." 

W came back before midnight having spent 

his time with the owner of the garage, who was a 
member of the aristocratic club and who had, like 
many of the English, gone into trade and lost noth- 
ing by it. A late moon hung over the city, outlin- 
ing its soft hills which rise from the James River. 
The many tall buildings now render these heights 
less consequential, but Rome on her seven hills 
never held out a stm-dier defence than did this be- 
sieged city during the Civil War. It was evacuated 
finally, but, as we all know, never taken by assault. 

The history of the earliest effort to reach Rich- 
mond, which resulted in the first encounter at Bull 
Run, is worth the reading in this hour of our pres- 
ent parlous times. Here Northern volunteers 
fought bravely, but they were not sufficiently sea- 
soned to hold out against rumours of the augmented 
army of their foe. The encounter served, for to 
quote directly from my S. H. of the U. S. : " Both 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

sides realised the need of long and patient drill in 
order to make soldiers out of the volunteers." 

It sensed also to make a romantic figure out of 
Thomas J. Jackson. At a moment of the Southern 
troops' uncertainty General Bee — another Confed- 
erate — pointed to Jackson's brigade and ex- 
claimed: " Look at Jackson! There he stands like 
a stone wall." The sobriquet remained, although 
Jackson did not remain a stone wall many minutes 
after the compliment, as ^IcDowell drove him, for 
a time at least, from his position. I was glad to 
find out who coined the metaphor, and I think it 
was very heroic of General Bee when he could 
probably have started the same rumour about 
himself, becoming an idolised Stonewall Bee. I 
suppose he was called the Busy Bee — and 
hated it. 

We did not bound away on our new spring until 
early afternoon of the next day, and then to take 
only preliminary spins to do some sight-seeing that 
was near our hearts. The delay was a good deal 
like the old days in Europe, for the baggage was 
" descended," the bill paid, the servants tipped, and 
Toby and I wandered about keeking in (as he says, 
being a Scotch dog) at the garage every now and 
then to see how they were getting on. In the old 
days we would hand over the unruly car to a 
mechanic, then run freely about, for there is a pe- 

-J-315-*- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

riod of complete detachment between the paying of 
a bill and the quitting of a town. 

In Richmond we walked in the State House 
grounds, not asking to enter the Capitol, as we 
feared another rebuff from this second endowed in- 
stitution. The outside is good enough for any one. 
The buildings were after the style of the Maison 
Carree at Nimes. I write this out because Bae- 
deker says it is so. From my recollection of the 
Roman temple, the Capitol at Richmond, sitting on 
its little hill of Indian name, is much more lovely. 
Richmond is on the site of Chief Powhatan's home. 
And while I don't wish to " repeat," you may re- 
member what I said in the last chapter about the 
advisability of killing off the Indians and settling 
on their wisely chosen ground. 

When we were in the car we drove first to St. 
John's church, where Patrick Henry asked to be 
given liberty or death. It should have been a seri- 
ous mission but it was not. It was very relieving 
to run up and down the wrong hills without fear of 
" sagging." It was very jolly to stop bystanders 
— ^granted you can stop anything that is standing 
— to ask of the church, for the bystanders them- 
selves were in a holiday mood. Once as a street car 
whizzed by I thought I saw a costume stranger 
than anything we are wearing in this day, which is 
saying a great deal; a something in brilliant green 

-J- 316 -J- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

brocade with a pointed bodice and a hat of pearl. 
But the chauffeur said he had noticed nothing re- 
markable, and if the chauffeur while motoring 
through traffic, over cobble stones, and among nets 
of trolleys did not notice the green dress it evi- 
dently wasn't there. 

I dismissed the matter when we arrived at the 
old white frame church and passed through the 
graveyard to hunt up the custodian. " To hunt up 
the custodian " is the most astounding phrase in 
this book. If I had written, " to run from him," it 
need not call for comment, but for us to seek one 
out deliberately, to compliment him into activity, to 
beg him to accompany us into the church was a 
crazy eventuality of this crazy day. 

He had just eaten his dinner. This was unfortu- 
nate. It seems when you just eat your dinner it is 
very hard to go into the church and deliver Patrick 
Hemy's speech. He said he always prepared for 
the speech when he orated before conventions — he 
had an egg in the morning. I sympathised with 
him. I said I was a very famous actress and I 
never dined before playing — I spent the day in 
prayer and fasting. He did not ask me who I was, 
and I was glad of that as I should have had to 
become Miss Julia Marlowe or JMiss Maude 
Adams, which would have been hard on them. He 
went on about himself — like a true artist. 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

He said the speech was four feet long, ten inches 
wide — in pencil but small writing. We asked him 
if he had committed it and he withered us. It 
seems an oration necessitating both hands free for 
gestures (he was of Italian extraction) was always 
learned by heart. I said I learned all my speeches 
too — but he did not pay any attention to me. The 
Illustrator, wishing to get into it also, now said 
something about the lecture he gave at Hunting- 
ton, Long Island, last Winter, on France in war 
time. He was trying to urge the guide to recite, 
not through the employment of my sympathetic 
tactics, but by opposition. He said he had been 
obliged on that rare occasion in Huntington to eat 
a large dinner beforehand or offend the hostess. 
They all ate so much in fact that they were very 
late for the lecture, yet he got through all right — 
not to say very well indeed. 

His entering the arena drew the custodian's at- 
tention. At least he looked at him and then re- 
marked to me that it was too long a recitation, 
dinner or no dinner, to be expended on just one per- 
son. I have never referred to this before, and I 
presume the Illustrator still thinks he was the one. 
Indissolubly, however, we went into the church, the 
endinnered one going with us, telling of the men 
who had shed tears over his speech — and women, 
too, when they were allowed to come. 

-J-318-J- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

" I shed tears when I hear good speeches," I 

hurried in, conscious of our opportunity. W 

admitted that he cried like a baby. It was too 
much for the dear old orator. " Get into Patrick 
Henry's pew," he said briefly. We got. " Sit 
down." We sat. " I'll give you the end of it." 

There was no lack of tears as he generously 
plunged in. I believe he was gratified. We did 
the best we could under the circumstances, and I 
am sure the intelligent readers of books from such 
redoubtable houses as our publishers' will appreci- 
ate that the situation was a delicate one. You see, 
if by any chance this should fall into his hands, I 
want him to know how kind I thought him to give 
us of his best. In a great peroration of elocution- 
ary art he licked into the end of it : 

" I know not what course others may take, but 
as for me give me liberty or give me death. I 
shouldn't a'et my dinner." 

The three of us went out to sit upon the steps of 
the church, all a little exhausted, and after he got 
his breath he talked of Italy's present war. He 
was disinterested in it for he had come over when 
a little boy, and the Civil War was his, and will 
always be the only one to him. His mind harked 
back to the siege of Richmond. He told us 
some incidents of the battle of Seven Pines which 
we had passed the day before — some horrors that 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

I would rather not have known, only it is more 
thrilling to hear these stories from the lips of an 
old man than to read the most graphic war litera- 
ture. And it is my admired Galsworthy who says 
we must keep with us always the consciousness of 
the misery of others. 

It reads to me as though it had heen a wasted 
battle, for the Confederates were forced back to 
their original positions in the course of the day, and 
it is hard for a woman to believe that there is prog- 
ress in the grim depletion of troops. On the first 
day of June the little Italian had gone out with 
two older boys to seek such relics as were to be 
seen nowadays by honest men for " five or ten 
cents " at the curio shop. 

The soldiers were piled up thick, he said, but he 
didn't appreciate they were dead, just sleeping, 
and in no need of the buttons which he cut from 
off the uniforms. Wounded men were everywhere, 
too, and there didn't seem to be any Red Cross — 
everything was a mixup. They were leaning 
against trees crying " Water, water," for a wounded 
man gets mighty thirsty. Only nobody gave them 
any water. Sometimes they would fall down " ker- 
plunk " and not get up again. Union soldiers were 
raiding around for food, and the women in the 
houses outside the Confederate lines would throw 
them out the keys from the upper windows, too 

-h320-i- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

scared to go down. And then the Yanks would 
get their fill. 

" Did the men of the North or South ever hurt 
women? " I asked. 

" Never," said the old custodian. " That ain't 
war. That ain't real war. They don't need to do 
that to fight." 

The boy ran across some Rebs finally who told 
him to " git," and he ran away but he never saw 
his two older companions again. " Nabbed 'em, I 
guess," said our old friend. " In those days if they 
caught a fellow it was ' hold up this gun,' and if 
the boy's arm didn't waver holding out the heavy 
musket he went into the army. He was old 
enough to fight." 

Pleased with our rapt attention to his story, he 
started to declaim an epitaph from one of the old 
grave stones, but we checked him. He did not 
know why. He did not know that in the oration of 
his own making, told us as we sat upon the steps, 
he had reached his climax. 

While recrossing the city on our second mission, 
my strange discovery on a street car was admitted 
by my two companions to have been something 
more than a vision. They worked this out by find- 
ing a phenomenon even more remarkable coming 
out of a saloon and wiping its mouth. It had 
pushed up a tin face mask to do this which I have 

-J-321-J- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

no doubt stood for a visor. It was a knight in ar- 
mour getting a beer. At the corner was an open 
air soda fountain, and here two Greek girls with 
Caius Brutus and Cassius were having a chocolate 
sundae. I am sure one of them was Cassius for he 
had a lean and hungry look and was eating a sand- 
wich. The citizens dressed like ourselves were not 
paying the smallest attention to them, perhaps for 
the reason that all those soberly clad were escorting 
one or more creatures fantastically equipped, with 
eyes only for their charges. 

The madness of Richmond continued in the resi- 
dence portion. Along quiet Grace Street cavaliers 
in Elizabethan capes were fuming with ladies from 
Verona for keeping them waiting. The ghost of 
Hamlet's father driving an automobile scorched 
ahead of King Lear in a low racer. On Monument 
Street, instead of closely inspecting the magnificent 
pieces of sculptured art, we tried to assuage the 
grief of an almost nude fairy who had lost her way. 
A householder came down her steps and offered to 
take the fairy along with her just as soon as she 
could catch " that Falstaff " — and spank him for 
going off on his velocipede. The miniature Fal- 
staff pedalled around the corner at this moment, 
his cushioned stomach firmly wedged in between the 
handle bars. It necessitated a nurse maid to pry 
him out, which delay gave us the opportunity 

-J-322-J- 



'1 




«<;a^. 






L^ 






0:co^u«kr^ Mux T» It 



•-if 






<^- 



THE DESERTED MILL OX OCCOQUAN CREEK, VIRGINIA 



JAML6T0WN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

of asking the lady what in time it was all 
about. 

"Time?" she repeated briskly, "Shakespeare's 
time. We are haviiig our pageant today. Every- 
body is in it — high and low. The whole town is 
looney — just perfectly looney." She turned to 
her young hopeful — " Brother, get into that ma- 
chine and don't keep twitching at your stomach — 
it will fall off." 

We followed them up the street as far as the 
new boulevard, passing the monuments to Lee, J. 
E, B. Stuart, and Jefferson Davis, whose time, like 
that of Shakespeare's is not forgotten in Richmond. 
I think that the prayer of Rudyard Kipling needs 
no engraving on stone in Virginia to keep its great 
men in mind. The answer to our quest, which was 
sending us to the boulevard, would prove the senti- 
ment that present-day Virginia entertained toward 
present-day heroes. 

There stands on this boulevard a great grey 
building of stone, known by the people as Battle 
Abbey, which is to serve as a museum and a 
memorial to the Confederacy. It has been nobly 
conceived and ably executed. It rises among cul- 
tivated gardens inviting to the public. It is fin- 
ished. Yet the great bronze doors are closed, and 
an old Confederate soldier bars the entrance with 
more of dignity than of strength. 

-i- 323 -t- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

We told our story and made our plea for en- 
trance. We said that we knew the young French 
painter, Charles Hoffbauer, who was working upon 
the mural decorations when the war broke out. I 
had been one of the guests at his dinner the night 
before he sailed on the Sanf Anna — almost two 
years ago. He was very jubilant then. He had 
dropped his work in Richmond at the first call, 
" but he would soon return." By a strange chance 

W met him at the Front a year after that — one 

year ago. He no longer said that he would soon 
return. " If I live to return," was then his preface 
to all his future plans. 

The veteran told us that the Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor had ordered the doors closed to the public 
fearing they might not understand the rough car- 
toons upon the wall, or recognise the value of the 
little sketches of the Virginia countryside which 
the young Frenchman had made to help him in his 
background. So the doors were closed until 

" Until " is not a momentous word in ordinary 
usage, but it caused a singing in our hearts. It 
was a painter in Paris who had wondered if the 
completion of a great building would really await 
the return of the mural decorator — if the builders 
would not be forced to secure another artist. This 
had aroused the Illustrator's one half of Southern 
blood. " It wouldn't be Virginia," he repeated to 

-^324-?- 



JAMESTOWN— THEN NORTHWARD HO! 

me as we were seeking the memorial on the day 
of pageantry in Richmond. " The Virginians have 
sentiment, and if they do not applaud the abnega- 
tion of a man who left his work for his country 
then — then I'm a German." 

The old grey-coated soldier did not complete his 
phrase. He swung open the door that we might 
pass through. The rooms stand as on the day Hoff- 
bauer left them. Daubs of colour schemes, rough 
drafts held by thumb tacks to the wall, and a huge 
military decoration almost completed, which ought 
to have satisfied the multitude that the soldier — 
now reserved by his government as an official war 
painter — knew his job whether fighting battles or 
recording them. When the veteran learned that we 
hoped to see him over there this year and that we 
would tell him of our pilgrimage he took fum- 
blingly from the wall a piece of cardboard to carry 
to him. It is large and unwieldy but it is going to 
France just the same. The emotions of a Southern 
state go with it, for on the cardboard is this legend : 

The interior of this building 
will be completed when the 
French Artist, who was called 
to his colours, returns from 
Europe to finish Ms work of 
painting the military panels. 



CHAPTER XV 

Listen to This: a Day's Perfect Motoring, hut 

the Day After That— Oh, My Word, What 

a Road! Washington for the Journey's 

End and the Great Discovery 

We drove from Richmond to Fredericksburg in 
the late afternoon over a road so perfect that I can 
remember nothing about it. That is the penalty of 
unilawed going: the mind gets smoothed out like 
the way and as blank as a piece of paper. Toby 
leaned out on his elbow as does an engineer from 
his cab. The wind blew through his young white 
hairs. " This is the life," he said. 

By continuing straight on to Fredericksburg we 
were missing Chancellors ville, the Wilderness, Bull 
Run and many of the great battlefields of the Civil 
War. And I was glad to do this. I was feeling 
the weight of the dead. We are all conscious of 
this burden today, but I was losing my balance over 
these chronicled losses in our books of reference. 
I was too far on the other side. As we left Rich- 
mond we passed the spot where that splendid cav- 
alry man, " Jeb " Stuart, was killed. I had fol- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

lowed him all through our trip. He had beaten 
his horse on from Carlisle, you will remember, when 
we were at Gettysburg, and I personally felt his 
loss. By holding to the main road at Spottsyl- 
vania Court House we would miss the woods where 
Stonewall Jackson was accidentally shot by his own 
sentinels as he rode along the rear of his enemy's 
lines in the evening. " We have shot General Jack- 
son," ran an awed whisper as he was carried back 
to the hospital where he died. I did not want to 
see that place. 

When we arrived at Spottsylvania it was sug- 
gested by the old inn keeper that he accompany 
us to the " Bloody Angle " to tell us of the dread- 
ful slaughter, but I was so distressed that the Illus- 
trator rescued me. We had come upon the old 
gentleman very agreeably. I was going around to 
the side door of his beautiful old hotel for I knew 
it had a history, and there is more history at the 
side door than the front — like the inside of people's 
lives. The old gentleman was inviting a solitary 
chick into the Summer kitchen for its evening meal. 
Now I come to think of it he was the third or fourth 
nice person I met who was looking after poultry — 
if poultry can be a single chick. 

He admitted that it had been headquarters, 
*' his " headquarters while he had planned the bat- 
tles of this vicinity ; he had slept in one of the great 

-^ 327 -i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

rooms above. I knew that he meant Lee, of course. 
The old gentleman wasn't running the hotel then. 
He was only sixteen and he was carrying a musket 
at the Bloody Angle. He had stayed with his 
mother for a while but he couldn't endure it. They 
lived in the country that Sheridan raided, and af- 
ter he swept past them the boy went into the army. 

" When we heard the Yanks were across coun- 
try," he told me as he gently mixed meal for the 
little chick, " I took the mules and my mare to the 
swamp. The raiders come along mighty close to 
us and I thought we were lost. Mules are inquisi- 
tive creatures and I was scared they'd crackle the 
underbrush trying to see who was going by, but 
they never moved a muscle till the troop was out of 
ear shot — they was Southern mules. I tethered 'em 
and went back to the house. My poor mother — 
they had been there. Hurt her? Lord, no, ma'am, 
just broke up housekeeping. Nobody attacked 
women in those days. 

"I'd had a feeling the night before that we were 
in for it, so I had taken the bacon and the ham and 
the flour upstairs to the garret. There was a big 
space between the floor and the ceiling of the room 
below so I got every mite of it hid away. The 
Yanks walked all over that food and never smelled 
it. My mother said if she hadn't been so upset over 
her broken dishes she'd 'a' laughed right out." 

-i- 328 -i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

I felt it was time to say something and I mut- 
tered feebly about the demands of war. We had 
passed through the wide hall to sit on the old front 
porch with the bullet holes in the brick all around 
us. The old man let himself down heavily on a 
bench, and shook his head. " That ain't war, 
breakin' a woman's crockery. They caught the but- 
ter dish on the end of a bayonet and sent it crash- 
ing. They swept off the pair of vases on the chim- 
bley piece. Grant fought our men hard — fought 
'em night and day. At old Harbour the wounded 
lay between the lines four days and nights, Yanks 
and Rebs, and he wouldn't stop long enough to get 
'em a canteen of water. But he fought. Lincoln 
knew. ' I can't spare this man — he fights,' he said. 
Grant didn't go round breakin' a woman's china." 

He paused. I was silent. Some negroes laughed 
in the little " calaboose " opposite. An order was 
painted over the jail door: "No talking with 
prisoners allowed under penalty of law." Children 
passed in a farm wagon with jingling bells at the 
mules' heads. " He's gassing about the war," one 
of the girls said. They knew his weakness — or 
mine. 

" No, when a man died in battle the enemy who 
killed him took an equal chance. There ain't no 
bitterness afterwards. But when your mother's 
house is sacked or your wife's little keepsakes 

-J-329-J- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

pitched out as though they was dirt a fire burns in 

you that is a long time dying down Grant 

was the South's best friend — him and Lincoln." 

A half hour later we descended Marye's Heights 
into Fredericksburg, the Princess Anne's Inn of- 
fering us comfortable rooms with as lovely a view of 
rooftrees as one can ask for. When the dinner 
proved excellent I suggested that we remain over 

Sunday. But W , although liking the hotel 

pickles to the verge of tears (pickles which were 
made by a " private coloured man," so the waiter 
told us), wanted to get it over with. By " it " I 
knew he meant the strip of bog through which we 
must toil to reach the ambition of every American : 
Washington, D. C. It loomed ahead of him like 
Christian's Slough of Despond, yet, like Christian, 
he knew that he must go through it. As a pilgrim 
of meaner metal I should have remained in Freder- 
icksburg hoping that fair weather would dry up 
the slough — a cheery theory which never occurred 
to Christian. 

My aunt had told me of many things to do at 
Fredericksburg, and I rejoiced that everything his- 
torical was shut up this Saturday evening not to 
be opened again until Monday morning. I had 
visited a number of places which she had warned 
me were important, and in view of the pleasant 
Saturday night do-nothingness which was creeping 

-i-330-i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

over me, I felt that my duty to my husband should 
come first. He had no ambitions beyond taking 
Toby out for a walk and discovering the house of 
Washington's mother. This he did four times, 
never picking a winner, like an unlucky horseman 
at a race. In despair I sank down upon an ordi- 
nary stone which was not ordinary at all, as a small 
boy said, with great solemnity, " You are sitting on 
the slave block." 

I leaped hastily home although no one seemed 
to make a bid for me, and gained what I thought 
would be the deep seclusion of my room. But a 
voice came through the fourth story window as 
close to me as though Peter Pan were in the 
branches of the great tree outside. It was so near 
that I thought I must be under observance as well 
and regretted the loosening of my hair. The voice 
bade me " Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! The second act 
will soon begin. Pretty girls, latest songs, high 
kicking, and funny comedians." 

The possibility of a comedian who was funny car- 
ried me to the window. Over the treetops, beyond 
the respectable church towers, I could see the old 
theatre on Main Street with the little balcony on 
which the manager was haranguing through a 
megaphone. "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" went on 
the mandate ; " pretty girls, lots of pretty girls." 
No one seemed to be heeding him and I wondered if 

.-J- 331 -i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

the girls were looking through the curtain (al- 
though it is bad luck to peep) to see if enough 
money was coming into the house to pay their board 
that week. 

" Don't miss it, gentlemen. Pretty girls, high 
kicking," the man babbled on. How the auctioneer 
would have enjoyed a megaphone while a black 
woman stood on the slave block! How easily he 
could have dwelt upon her points. Was it very 
different, after all, this man on the theatre balcony 
and the auctioneer who stood beside the slave block 
calling his wares ? I have always thought how dis- 
agreeable it must be to depend largely upon good 
looks for whatever occupation is yours. It must 
be acute suffering for a plain girl to be pushed to 
the back row of a chorus, no matter how well she 
sings, while a fluffier one is brought forward. Did 
the slaves, I wonder, take pride in fetching a good 
price? If so what despair they must have enter- 
tained in their hearts as their strength and fitness 
left them and their value slipped away. 

I heard the next morning that the troop had so 
successfully managed to " Hurry, Hurry, Hurry," 
that they got off without paying their board, and I 
couldn't help being relieved. It speaks well for the 
citizens of Fredericksburg who were not lured by 
the megaphone recital. Now if the manager had 
only barked the marriage of a Miss Pearl to a Mr. 

-«-332-t- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

Arturo the town would probably have lent them 
the light of its countenance. All this from the col- 
oured bell boy who clung to our running board 
while he showed us Fredericksburg. 

I refused to pass through the National Cemetery 
where lie 15,000 Union soldiers or to visit those 
many graves of the Confederates. One need not 
go to Marye's Heights to stand upon a battlefield. 
The fierce engagement between Burnside's and 
Lee's troops was fought across this lovely town. 
The Confederates upon the heights held the superior 
position, yet in spite of this Burnside ordered Sum- 
ner's brigade across the plain six times, with enor- 
mous loss. It is said that Hooker urged Burnside 
to withdraw om' Northern troops, but the Com- 
mander (who you may recall had but recently suc- 
ceeded McClellan after Antietam) held stead- 
fastly to his plan of attack until 12,653 Federals 
gave their lives to the day's unsuccessful battling as 
opposed to 5,377 slain Confederates. What was in 
the mind of Burnside it would be hard to say, but 
history shows that he was stunned with grief after- 
ward, offering his resignation which was accepted, 
and Hooker, his chief critic, placed in command. 

Fredericksburg shows no shadow of its old trage- 
dies. INIodestly appreciative of the fame which cir- 
cumstances have bestowed upon it, the old town 
keeps itself for the visitor. Privet hedges divide 

-j-333-*- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

the lawns, many of the houses are painted pale yel- 
low with roofs and shutters of a lovely green, and, 
lacking a coloured boy upon the running board, the 
citizens gladly point out the way. The house where 
Washington's mother died was finally achieved. 
He had urged her to come in from her country 
place during the French and Indian Wars, here he 
visited her and the building still stands where he 
was made a Mason. 

Our coloured guide felt our ignorance and en- 
joyed it — which was a great relief. He brought us 
to the shaft of stone erected in her honour. 
" Mary's," he said respectfully, " the mother of 
George." He told us that this monument may not 
be the onliest one put up for a lady, but it am the 
highest, and that it was placed fairly remotely from 
the town because she often visited this spot. " She 
did not meditate on this hyah spot becase it am call 
Meditation Rock, but it am call Meditation Rock 
becase she done meditate hyar." We were all quite 
confused after this, but I carried away a clear re- 
gret that we do not have a rock in every New York 
apartment where we can go to think. I suppose I 

would not be alone even there, W coming to 

the rock room to ask suspiciously what I was think- 
ing about in the fear that I was planning a divorce, 
or wanting to come in and lean on the rock and 
think, too. 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

In the complexities of getting away — I may say 

the anxieties, for W was deep in conference 

with automobilists over the road — he forgot to take 
his pickles ordered from the private coloured man, 
although a lunch was put up and delivered to us 
with chilling ceremony as though it was the last 
meal of condemned men. It had been the concen- 
sus that we pass over the strip of bad road without 
an attempt at the detour, as the detour was now 
worse than the road for which the detour is made. 

We listened to the autoists rather indulgently as 
they told us of farmhouses where we would find 
chains if we lacked the essentials for pulling our- 
selves out of the clay. We had seen some bad roads 
before and had managed them very nicely, and it 
was difficult to believe that a highway leading to 
Washington, and one in constant use for two cen- 
turies by the grandees of Virginia would hold any- 
thing of terror for seasoned motorists. We had 
been vaccinated by the Blue Ridge passes, the virus 
was excellent, and we felt as immune as an inocu- 
lated soldier. We had forgotten that there are no 
bacilli to protect one from the dangers of a devas- 
tating bomb. I did not recall until later that it was 
Sunday, and that such mishaps as have befallen us 
have generally occurred on the Sabbath day. I be- 
lieve now that motor cars are deeply religious. One 
may observe in the IMonday morning papers the 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

harvest of accidents of the day before. It must be 
very painful to a highly moral motor car to carry 
around a lot of joy riders who ought to be in church 
growing better. I suppose when the occupants be- 
come too joyful for the day, the car bucks and 
throws them out. " Steering gear goes wrong," 
reads the newspapers — but the other motors know! 

It would have been difficult to have gone wrong 
any quicker than we did, although the steering gear 
remained ethically correct. The only thing I can 
make out that we did rightly after crossing the 
Rappahannock was to pay toll for a good road 
which the motor would not let us long enjoy. At 
Garrisonville it wilfully carried us away from the 
fine highway, although we vigorously protested that 
our path couldn't be the right one. One would 
think an engine, even a fanatic on religion, would 
not care to do this, and I suppose the chassis puts 
such tricks up to the poor creature and then lets it 
pant and puff to pull him along — a chassis is mas- 
culine, I am sure. 

We brought up at a farm called Pleasant View. 
It was a very pleasant view, indeed, the gentleman 
farmer pointing out to us a nice but distant pros- 
pect of the fine highway from which we had 
strayed. He said it was no trouble to get back to it, 
just take a tiny (almost unborn) road back of his 
barn. We thanked him, not having seen the se- 

-i-336-i- 




THK WHITK HorSK FIK ».\1 I'HK LAWX. \VASHIX(;TUX 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

lected itinerary until we got behind the barn. We 
did not meet with his household again, and I sup- 
pose they thought we were skimming along on the 
highway while we were still two hundred feet away 
from them behind the large house for their kine, 
shovelling the mud off the running board. It never 
entered the head of the cordial proprietor of Pleas- 
ant View that this road was bad enough for even a 
mild cautioning, and as we made our way out 

W delivered what I suppose is a problem: " If 

a Virginian does not consider this cowpath some- 
thing awful, how awful will be the way ahead of 
us which all Virginians admit is well-nigh impass- 
able?" 

But that was while we were still behind the barn. 
As soon as we had reached the thoroughfare again 
dangers ahead lessened in their import. I found 
this significant in my general resume of the run. 
The whole day was significant, for it was our last 
one in the Old Dominion — if the reader insists, 
as the Virginian does, that this state and no other 
is really the territory which we went forth to dis- 
cover. And Washington was the end of the run, 
the goal for all Americans, whose achievement is 
possible for such as take the bad going with the 
good. 

I like to think that the bog, which presently con- 
fronted us, stands for the despair through which 

-h 337 -i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

we must all struggle before we reach the winning 
post of our high desires. I believe that the roads 
over which we travelled represent more perfectly 
the progress of life than my first metaphorical illu- 
sions in this book predicted. Socially, politically, 
man takes to the road. He finds it easy, he finds it 
rough. He finds it rough where he would have 
thought it easy, he strikes good going when he was 
preparing to be ditched. Although railing against 
figures of speech in a preceding chapter, I find 
myself now deep in them again. It seems impos- 
sible to avoid them. And perhaps that is another 
thing we discoverd: all progress in life — mental, 
spiritual, or just going along a road — is analogous 
each to the other. 

Certainly I was a poor pilgrim when we reached 
the swamp. The way suddenly revealed itself to 
us. It was not a way, it was not a swamp. It was 
like the extinct crater of a volcano or a deserted 
trench after the curtain of fire. Broad, solitary, it 
seemingly stretched inimitably ahead of us, al- 
though there is but six miles of it. The ruts were 

axle deep and the mud holes bottomless. W 

got out to walk ahead and direct the driver, keep- 
ing him out of the wheel tracks, and as much as 
possible on the ridges between the gullies. I got 
out to walk ahead, too cowardly to look back upon 
the tugging engine but straining with my spine as 

-i-338-i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

meagre assistance. There may have been wild 
flowers to brighten our path but I didn't notice 
them, and I think if the chauffeur had cried out 

" briar rose " or " hunmiing bird "! W would 

have buried him deep in a mud hole. 

The murdered man would not have been with- 
out articles as foreign to the bog as himself. Tin 
gasoline cans were in these holes, rocks dragged 
from a distance, madly uprooted pine trees, and bits 
of chain which had undoubtedly groaned, then, 
snapping, unfulfilled their mission. Frayed ropes 
were tied to the trees which told of the resorting 
to " Dutch windmills," and an empty flask now and 
then spoke eloquently of the last resort of the dis- 
tracted motorist. Thanks to the carefully picked 
route of the Illustrator's and to a light car with a 
good engine we did not sink so deep but that our 
own power carried us out, and just as I felt that 
there was no end at all we saw the end ahead. 

The greatest trial was yet to come for another 
strip of ground, admitted by the Virginians as 
quite impassable, was before us, and we had been 
told that this time a detour was necessary. We 
must not miss this deviation — the whole Princess 
Anne Hotel had been very certain about that. But 
the Princess Anne went further, she said we 
couldn't miss it. I don't know why she said that, 
it aroused all that was antagonistic both in motor 

-i-339-i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

and man. We could miss anything — especially a 
good turn on a Sunday. Not being Indians — not 
recognised Indians — I think, myself, that the 
marks in the woods by which we were to be guided 
were a little vague. I suppose an Indian could 
smell the right turn. Even I thought that we had 
reached it too soon, but I said so in a small voice 
as it would be rather awful to advise a wrong turn 

during such anxious moments. W said it must 

be the turn as there was an A. A. A. sign nailed to 
a tree and that was one of our guiding marks. And 
while I had a number of intelligent replies regard- 
ing the number of trees and the number of A. A. A. 
signs in this world I told them only to Toby. 

This new perambulation held only the gloomiest 
prospects. After twenty yards it grew worse than 
our first boggy wading. It grew unbelievably 
worse. It was so wide and yawning. A fallen wire 
nearly cut off our heads. I marvelled that a white 
man could ever have been in that locality to string 
it up in the first place. Yet we saw the beautiful 
faces of two white men before we had quite gone 
around the globe — time and space were immeasur- 
able, you understand. And yet, again, I would 
rather not have seen those faces. They were not 
murderous or sodden with vice. They were ordi- 
nary faces with moustaches, their eyes sticking out 
rather queerly from the gloom of a canopied auto- 

-j-340-i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

mobile, looking no doubt as ours did. INIy distaste 
for their countenances was their familiarity. I had 
seen them somewhere before. I had seen them — 
the two cars continued rocking, plunging, skidding 
toward each other, but ere we were abreast I asked 
them from whence they came. 

And they were coming from Fredericksburg! I 
had seen them in the hotel. They had chosen the 
detour which we had avoided. We were going back 
over the greater of two evils to the place from which 
we had started — they told us we had almost covered 
the detour. At this point one can employ all the 
similes at one's command. To find ourselves in 
life going backward after we have struggled so 
bravely to go forward ! To have to turn about, be 
it ever so difficult to turn, and do it over again. 
To travel, in this painful retracing, without the 
spirit of adventure, for we know the road to hold no 
pleasant deviation. To hate it and hate it but to go 
through with it — the far city of ambitions for our 
striving point rather than any mean slumj)ing to 
the small town of our beginnings which lies so near. 
To know that this wrong turn is of our own choos- 
ing, for we cannot pick our way as yet through the 
paths of life with any sureness of instinct. And, 
blackest terror! the consciousness that w6 must 
keep on bungling until the vague sign-postings read 
themselves clear. 

-J- 341-^ 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

In this fashion — unlamenting — we lurched again 
toward Washington. The second detour was so 
amiable in its construction — by comparison — that 
we found a disguised blessing in earlier trials. 
And that, too, can be twisted into metaphorical 
fancyings. For the last time we ate our luncheon 
under the shade of trees with a brook to cool the 
motor's wheels, frightening the trout from out their 
rocky castles and leaving them apologetic bread 
crumbs for their return. 

At Occoquan we were politely received by a road 
so excellent that we felt our troubles to be over, 
and with something of the assurance of the man 
who has made his fortune we took time for the 
enjoyment of the town. The mills along the water's 
edge had gone to ruin picturesquely. What is in 
the Illustrator's sketch as attractive desolation 
from the water side was, at the top of the high bank 
along which ran the main street, a neat little gar- 
age for small cars. The town was very busy as 
time, tide, and fish wait for no man. A great school 
of godless herring had gone with the tide on a Sun- 
day excursion up Occoquan Creek, and with doubt- 
ful hospitality the citizens had prevented their de- 
parture with alluring nets. They were now em- 
ployed sitting along the stream skinning the vis- 
itors. On the whole our punishment had been less 

l^- 34,2 -J- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

severe and I am certain ancient Occoquan would 
" skin " no journeying motorist. 

We made vigorous efforts to clean each other up 
as we became part of a long line of automobiles 
running safely and surely over the pike. Many 
of them bore the number of the District of Colum- 
bia. Washington was theirs, with attendant strug- 
gles like our own, perhaps, or by accident of birth 
like babies who first see the world with silver spoons 
in their mouths. Drunk with pride of conquest 
we now felt that, aesthetically, it would be incom- 
plete to enter Washington without first paying our 
respects to Mount Vernon. It would be a swift 
run of two miles off the highway and a swift return. 
Poor, trusting children of the road that we were, 
encouraged by a few miles of macadam into believ- 
ing that the paved streets of heaven were ours 
forever. 

Since Virginia had not seen fit in two centuries 
of travel over the main road to adopt some measure 
of filling up that swamp we might have expected a 
highway no more impressive leading to the house 
of the Father of our Country. Yet we found our- 
selves surprised when we sank into a mud hole just 
before Blount Vernon and for the first time on our 
trip could not muster the power to get out of it. 
The way to the posts of honour is not easily gained I 
I committed my only indiscretion of the run as I 

r-h 343 -i- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

sat in the smoking car with wheels whirring help- 
lessly. " It's Sunday," I said, " what should we 
expect? ' Had I but served my God with half the 

zeal I serve my king, he would ' " I got no 

further. 

" Great Scott ! " shouted the Illustrator excit- 
edly. " Sitting there chanting Shakespeare, and 
what we need is a chain and a team. Even the Bible 
justifies pulling a dumb animal out of a ditch on 
the Sabbath day." 

But neither of us was taking the situation with 
any degree of tortured anxiety for the inexplicable 
reason that we were enjoying it! As I started 
briskly up a side path to seek a farmhouse I re- 
flected on this sensation of exhilaration which — if 
we only admit it — frequently attends a catastrophe. 
I believe if all of us were to analyse our emotions 
over the little accidents in life we would find that 
we were getting out of the event as much amuse- 
ment as annoyance. " Am I not enjoying this, am 
I not? " ask yourself, and then it may not seem so 
bad. 

I was certainly amused when I reached the 
farmer's. He saw me from a distance swinging 
my motor hat and goggles at him for there was a 
surrey in front of the house and I feared he might 
go off in it before my arrival. He did go off upon 
discovering my advent, disappearing behind the 

-H- 344! -f- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

house to return before I had explained my mission 
to his wife. He was dragging several feet of chain. 
" Which one? " was all he asked as we climbed into 
the surrey. It developed that it was the second 
one. The cars generally stuck in the first mud hole 
which we had manipulated without any great effort. 
The farmers had thought of making up a purse 
themselves and filling in the holes, and it would 
surely be done by the Washington Automobile 
Club shortly if Virginia continued to neglect her 
duty. I thought him a very honest gentleman when 
he must make a considerable sum of money pulling 
out cars, and I wondered if any baser soul in other 
days had created this lucrative demand for horses 
and chains by digging deep late o' nights. We have 
since learned that these bottomless pits are on a part 
of the estate once comprising Mount Vernon, very 
aptly designated on the map Washington made 
himself as Muddy Hole Farm. Possibly, the Asso- 
ciation for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities 
has kept the land as it was, preventing any restora- 
tion so that the holes may remain in their quaint 
old colonial form. We were very friendly by the 
time we had surreyed to the second mud hole, and 
I was feeling sorry for the Illustrator who was not 
enjoying the drive with Mr. Campbell and his nice 
family as was I. Yet we found him agreeably en- 
gaged with jNIr. jNIann and family who had also 

H- 34!5 -«- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

ventured " like little wanton boys that swim on 
bladders," and were halting their huge car until 
we could get out of the Virginia antiquity so that 
they could get into it. Small cars had also joined 
the fray, companions in distress, for we stood be- 
tween them and Mount Vernon like dogs in the 
manger. It was Mr. Campbell who dealt us our 
last blow for Sabbath breaking. Mount Vernon, he 
told us, was never opened on the Lord's day. So 
it was all for nothing save the making of new 
friends. 

Mr. Campbell furnished the chains and Mr. 
Mann's big car pulled us out backward, pulled us 
away from Mount Vernon and its quagmires for 
the unregenerate. It was easily done as we knew it 
would be. We all shook hands. The surrey de- 
parted in the direction of the highway, the big mo- 
tor backed up the road also, the little cars flopped 
in and out of the mud and went home. With care 
we retraced our steps as well, and in two minutes 
we came upon the big car again (surrounded by the 
little cars, attended by the surrey), itself deep in 
the mire! Again the chains, again the fluttering 
of the little cars, again the applause as our car 
pulled Mr. Mann's car from out mud hole number 
one. 

The situation was Virginian to the end. Mr. 
Campbell refused any gift beyond the gift of 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

thanks. Even though we broke his chain he ac- 
cepted it as gracefully as though he had courted 
this loosening of his shackles. " Ships that pass in 
the night," murmured the Illustrator when we were 
alone. " A real friend-ship," I suggested in a thin 
voice fearing it wouldn't go very well. It didn't. 
But our final encounter with the mud of Virginia 
and this quick gathering of her people to offset the 
mud is the last needed bit of material for the 
modelling of my figure of speech. The imagery is 
complete. Whether it is Sunday or washday, 
prayer-meeting night or fish night, it is my 
sincere belief that he who sinks in the mire will 
find those to lift him out if he cares to make the 
struggle. 

I shall promise no more metaphor, none of my 
own poor building at least. Realities began crowd- 
ing upon us. A brand new car with a brand new 
driver pinched us off the road as we were about to 
pass; we were intent upon the warnings of the 
traffic cops; we grew nervous over the possibility 
of carrying a number of the District of Columbia 
— the responsibilities of an involved living were 
settling down upon us. City influences were felt. 
Even before we reached the bridge across the Po- 
tomac the Washington monument beckoned us on. 
We steered by it and found its permanence satisfy- 
ing to the mariner. We bumped upon the bridge 

-i-347-e- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

which took us out of the Old Dominion 
with the same vigour that we bumped into the 
state. 

" Good-bye, Virginia," sang the Illustrator, 
" with all thy ruts I love thee still! " 

We approached the Shoreham Hotel through 
Elysian fields, pierced by the high walls of Amer- 
ica's real bulwarks — the sky-scraping business 
blocks. For the second time Toby and I ap- 
proached the desk of a great hotel as members in 
good standing of " Sons and Daughters of the 
Soil." We were permitted to stay on two condi- 
tions : one that we would depart the following day, 
the other that Toby would allow himself to be car- 
ried up and down in the elevators. I was feel- 
ing very untidy, and as though my money was not 
real. The band was playing, scented ladies sat 
about on throne chairs, men of might chatted 
around me, a glittering servant approached the 
desk bearing the huge cream envelope of a foreign 
embassy. It was for W . 

We were still obliged to leave on the morrow but 
Toby was granted the run of the lift. Porters be- 
gan carrying our clay-encrusted luggage to our 
rooms. A motor hat box lends an air of importance 
to any woman no matter how travel-stained. The 

valet who recognised W from previous visits 

straightened him out while he retailed the small talk 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

of the town. He knew the great talk as well, I 
imagine, from his round of visits, but he was dis- 
creet. We scrubbed Toby; we dressed; we dined. 
A httle table had been reserved for us in the midst 
of the gay company. Great names were paged. 
Plain women, badly gowned, sipped water nerv- 
ously. A Congressman demanded a high chair for 
his baby. From all the roads that lead to Washing- 
ton they had come. I began to " shake down " into 
place. The lobby, a second time traversed, was no 
longer strange to me. The atmosphere had ceased 
to be exotic. This was the pot-pourri of the coun- 
try. Field flowers were blended with gardenias. 
Put me down as one of the wall-flowers in the jar, 
for I was " at home '^ again. 

The three of us went for a walk with the aim- 
less strolling of those whose tasks are done. The 
Illustrator was more than satisfied, but I was still 
uneasy for I had not found my heart's quest. I had 
found no mansion as satisfactory as Elsie Dins- 
more's. And yet I had not lost my faith that some- 
where was a great house gleaming white, with gar- 
dens and an avenue, and darkies singing happily, 
which would fill the vision of my youth. " You 

will find it," said W placidly, " if I have to 

draw it for you on white cardboard." He halted 
as he spoke, pricking up the ear that the chills 
and fever warning had left in working order. 

-J- 349 -J- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

" Listen," he consoled, " it's the darkies singing 
happily." 

It was not the magic of moonlight which lent 
enchantment to the little circle standing under an 
electric light to sing because they could walk no 
further without singing. They wore high collars 
and pointed shoes, " nobby " checked suits and car- 
ried canes. Their hats were on the back of their 
heads — Panamas, not the brown derbies of their 
Southern kin. They sang " Good-bye, Girls, Good- 
bye," but their voices were of the plantation. 

We lined up at the curb for they were opposite, 
and as I placed myself in a position to see them 
plainly I saw past them. I saw their back drop. 
It was a great house in a great park, with an ave- 
nue, and gardens profusely distributed about. The 
house was of the desired colonial architecture. The 
roof was flat, and there were pillars, and it was big 
enough. Under the brilliant lights carriages were 
drawing up before the wide door. Servitors as- 
sisted the visitors to descend. They mounted the 
steps of the porte cochere — the enormous porte 
cochere — and passed within the mansion. It was 
better than Elsie's, more purely Greek than Elsie's, 
more richly encircled than Elsie's. I had found it 
at last. I had found it at the end of the road. The 
end of all material desires, visions of the soul, ambi- 
tions of the mind. Yet in the confusion of new 

> 350 -J- 



WASHINGTON FOR THE JOURNEY'S END 

buildings since my last visit to Washington the 
mansion was strange to me. It was hmniliating but 
I turned to him to learn whose house this was — be- 
fore I took it for my own. 

" It's just the house it should be," said W . 

" It's the White House." 



351 



CHAPTER XVI 

This Is the End, I Promise You. If You Are 

Sorry I Am Glad, if You Are Glad I 

Am Sorry — but I Can't Blame You 

" Psychologically," I said, choking slightly, " I 
am through. There shouldn't be another chapter." 

"What!" exclaimed the Illustrator. "Leave 
them flat?" 

And I was delighted with this encouragement to 
go on, for I wish to tell you not only how to get 
home, but of his new purple tie purchased for the 
French Embassy. I don't know why this man buys 
a purple tie whenever he is in touch with the Gaul. 
In Paris he ever returns from a shopping expedi- 
tion with stockings all the wrong size, as feet over 
there seem to be without numbers, and one purple 
tie. 

I suppose such effervescent equipment is our ef- 
fort to capture and assume the spirit of France — 
as though it went on like a shirt. We thought it 
was clothes for a long time which made the man 
over there; now we know their braided vest- 
ments, pointed shoes, and waxed moustachios to be 
as the Sunday holiday in the Bois or the stroll up 

-j-352-i- 



THIS IS THE END 

the boulevards every afternoon: merely "trim- 
mings," in no way an essential to French life. 

W and the chauffeur came back very for- 
eign and gallant in their manner toward me. I 
think a little interview now and then with a French 
ji^LDibassador would do a great deal of good to a great 
many American husbands. I suppose you could 
even hit a lady charmingly and diplomatically after 
a study of the system. His gloves were already in 
his pocket as we started on toward Baltimore, and 
I didn't ask him if he wore them in the drawing 
room or ripped them off hastily at the last moment 
for I too was feeling the reflected lustre of di- 
plomacy. 

One could travel very well over the road to Balti- 
more dressed in tulle, for there was no dust and the 
smoothness of the way invited us to a forbidden 
speed. We were to have this sort of a dancing 
floor from Washington on. Many will enjoy just 
such motoring, asking for no other thrilling de- 
nouement than that of reaching a given point with 
as much ease as possible. I like it myself. But you 
will notice that things do not " happen " when the 
road is very good, and in the peopled, well-paved 
country you will be something of a cipher no mat- 
ter how luxurious your car. You will no longer be 
an event. You will not add to your experiences or 
to those of others — but you will be comfortable. 

-^353-*- 



THIS IS THE END 

That is, you will be comfortable until you strike 
the cobble stones of Baltimore. They appear to 
rise up and hit you with the same violence exer- 
cised when they were thrown by the Baltimore mob 
at the Federal troops. If Maryland was on the 
side of the North its greatest city was largely 
Southern in its sympathies, and it has remained so 
even to the paving. We saw its towers from a dis- 
tance in a late sun, and, as always before when ap- 
proaching the city, I thought of Rome. There is no 
reason for this, and the association of the two must 
be an intangible religious influence, for Rome is to 
Europe what Baltimore is to our States. 

The great closed mansions of Monument Street 
are as the palaces of Rome, especially those noble 
houses which were so passionately for the Pope that 
the courtyards were barred to all society from the 
day that the Holy Father became a prisoner at the 
Vatican. The mansions of Monument Street have 
not the tolerance of the real nobles. In Italy the 
grand palazzi arises from squalourous districts; 
pretty children, olive skinned by nature and circmn- 
stance, play at the feet of the Major Domo who 
guards the gates, and the tired citizen finds a rest- 
ing-place on the sills of the lower windows. 

There are no benches placed along the strip of 
green which divides Monument Street. The foun- 
tains play and one must stand to enjoy them. The 

-J- 354 -J- 




:\Ii)XL'.Mi:XT STREET, BALTIMORE 



THIS IS THE END 

flowers bloom but you must not kneel upon the 
grass to sniff their fragrance. " Dogs are not al- 
lowed except in leash." Charles Street, however, 
which intersects INIonument, the two becoming 
Mount Vernon Place for a square either way, is 
more generous to that portion of the public who 
would most appreciate the beauty of a green open 
space. The splendid shaft to Washington is sur- 
mounted by his graven image. I don't remember 
which way he is looking, but I hope that it is not 
up snobby Monument Street but down bonnie 
Charles where the people sit under the shade of 
the trees, with lovers always going up and down 
the stone steps which break the slope. And the 
fountain is so inviting that straightway one thinks 
of soda water and pleasant modern things. 

We did not need a bench after dinner for we sat 
upon a graded scaffolding in the wide circle about 
the statue which was being built for a flower mart 
shortly to be held. We enjoyed our perch, al- 
though not looking as well as hydrangeas probably, 
and I cannot speak too highly of the honesty of 

Baltimoreans for W^ left his war book on the 

improvised bench while we went prowling off for 
soda water and did not return for an hour. It was 
still there, which troubled the author, as he was 
glad he found it, but regretted that no one would 
steal it. 

.-^ 355 -i- 



THIS IS THE END 

I beg to add, so that he may continue modest in 
your eyes, that carrying it around was not his habit. 
Some one in the hotel had sent the copy to him for 
his signature, and while this may never get in (this 
wot's coming now) as we have different publishers, 
I promise you that he will autograph any book free 
of charge, or if he won't I will do it myself in his 
own best handwriting. I am very good at this. A 
United States President lived across the street from 
us when I was a little girl, and, possessing one of 
his signatures, I manufactured dozens just as good 
and sent them around to all my far-off relatives. I 
am less steeped in crime than I was in my youth 
(leading the simple life of an actress) and when- 
ever I enter their homes to see framed and auto- 
graphed pictures of our illustrious neighbour, I 
wonder if my greater punishment will be for the 
sins of my childhood or those of maturer years. 

There was some difficulty in finding the ice cream 
soda, although the more we heard the chalice-like 
fountain splash the more frantic we became for the 
desired chocolate flavour. The search grew so vital 
to us that we felt suddenly as young as when an ice 
cream soda meant a good deal in one's life. The 
most remarkable part of this hunt for the nectar of 
the gods was its taste when we at last hunted it to its 
fizzly source. It was as good as we had expected, 
and this had nothing to do with the flavour, rather 



THIS IS THE END 

could it be traced to the chief reason for including 
Baltimore as part of our itinerary. 

Some years ago we had gone to Baltimore on 
our wedding journey, and stopped at the Stafford 
Hotel where we were staying now. We had walked 
in Mount Vernon Place just as we were doing in 
this year of our Lord, and we had found the ice 
cream soda second to no other. Think of all that 
distinguishes Baltimore: the Holy Church, the 
monuments, the beauties, and the whiskey, and yet 
I remember it most affectionately for the softest 
of drinks. I asked an old porter who had been at 
the hotel forever if he remembered a large envelope 
arriving at this caravansary, covered with red 
hearts and addressed to me, and of its being pushed 
under the door by sniggering bell boys. Of course 
he didn't remember it. I knew he wouldn't, but I 
thought then that all the city must know of the 
missive from over-humorous cousins. It surprised 
me on this previous visit to see the modest length 
of the hotel lobby. After the red hearts arrived I 
found the front doors evilly withdrawing from me 
as I walked and walked and walked to reach them. 
All eyes were upon me I was sure. They were smil- 
ing behind their hands I feared. And now the 
porter has forgotten the cataclysm, and I — I am 
boasting of it ! 

" Did you see the cathedral this time? " asked the 
-^ 357 -<- 



THIS IS THE END 

Illustrator when we were well under way the next 
day. Then we both laughed for we know now that 
we will never visit the cathedral in Baltimore, and 
yet I could go on writing of the city's beauty for a 
reason no more tangible to you than the excellence 
of its soda water. Possibly it is drawn from the 
eternal fountain of youth, and that possession 
should distinguish any habitation of man. 

But hats off to Maryland. It bowed us in and 
bowed us out without a jar. Some day we will go 
over all of its highways to do a " Maryland, My 
Maryland " story. The state exercises a beautiful 
intelligence in working on its highways continually. 
Gangs of men such as we see in Europe are ever 
patching up the poor places, and, after the Euro- 
pean fashion, they do but one side of the road at a 
time so that no detour is made. At least that was 
our experience, but we were disposed to take life 
kindly on that splendid run to New York, and we 
may have confounded our own condition of mind 
with the predisposition of the world. It doesn't 
make much difference how shabbily we are treated 
if we don't know it — " Don't have sense enough 
to know it," as the Illustrator once estimated him- 
self after an unexpected blow at his scheme of life. 
But I still think he was ahead of the one who de- 
livered the blow. 

He sat up so happily on this brilliant May morn- 
-<- 358 -f- 



THIS IS THE END 

ing that Toby found me dull by contrast and in- 
sinuated himself by every wile known to dog into 
the front seat. Then the two, with the chauffeur, 
beamed over the wind shield, dismissing questions 
which confused them like three very simple children 
— or three wise men. It was the driver who found 
German lettering on the surface of the houses as we 
left Baltimore. jNIen of Teutonic features were 
coming in from the country byways and I would 
very much have enjoyed a run off the highway to 
call upon our janitor's father. He is one of a body 
of Bohemian farmers who were invited over to re- 
claim a tract of worn-out land which they have 
made to blossom like the rose, or at least like the 
tobacco plant. A living derived from this leaf is 
as precarious as gambling at Monte Carlo, but 
as profitable to the farmer when the yield is 
good as the long-sought system for breaking the 
bank. 

I showed the janitor some photographs when we 
got back and he was so good as to recognise grate- 
fully every hilltop and every cow grazing on it. 
Considering the languid interest which the aver- 
age friend shows for any snapshot not taken by 
himself, or without himself in it, I recommend 
travellers to confine their photographic display to 
those " below stairs." Unless you have a picture of 
yourself covered with mud while your car lies in the 

H- 359 -h- 



THIS IS THE END 

ditch they would rather not know anything about 
your trip. 

But to go back to the janitor (which is not mat- 
ter foreign to motoring as I am trying to " ease " 
you toward your domicile and the cares which await 
you) he told me of his first dreadful week over 
here when he started as a waiter in an obscure res- 
taurant. He described how he strained and strained 
to understand our language so that the patrons 
would not complain and the proprietor replace him 
with another boy of greater linguistic attainments. 
He cried for seven nights after he went to bed, cried 
with discouragement and fatigue and heimweh. 
But at the end of the week he began to grasp little 
phrases of speech: " Coffeenrolls," and " eggsn- 
toastquick," and at the end of a year he spoke our 
language. I looked at him admiringly. One year ! 
And we Americans putter every season about a 
foreign country without a past or a future tense at 
our command. And for the subjunctive ! Oh, well ! 
who of us would know an English subjunctive even 
if we met it in broad daylight walking up the 
avenue ? 

Before the janitor had finished putting up the 
awnings (I am getting you as far as preparations 
for the Summer now so that you will soon be ac- 
customed to the prospects of the same bed every 
night) I asked him why his people came over 

-h 360 -e- 



THIS IS THE END 

here if they were all so homesick. He was about 
to hang out perilously again as he manipulated the 
Summer shelter, and I thought I had better get 
what I could from him before it was too late. 
" Why does anybody go anywhere? " he returned, 
leaning out over the window sill so that I couldn't 
talk back. 

But why do we go anywhere? What peculiar 
quality is it that sends gallants and beaux far from 
court life to discover strange and hostile and un- 
healthy lands ? Why did more go after them when 
the toll of death was so great among the first ad- 
venturers? Since the North and South Poles have 
been discovered with such a tragic penalty what is 
the incentive that sends other men in to freeze their 
fingers and their toes and sit upon ice floes until 
rescued? And why do I put the question marks 
into this paragraph when they might as well be 
periods? For I know that the very same driving 
qualities which send you and me out upon our little 
motoring expeditions actuated those greater ex- 
plorations. Vastly different one would say — the 
early Puritans with their English spinning wheels, 
the modern emigrant with his pack upon his back, 
the motorist with his bristling maps, and the house- 
wife moving from one flat to another. Yet the 
spirit is identical. 

With no obligation to " hunt up " we hunted 
-h 361 -*- 



THIS IS THE END 

vigorously for the birthplace of Edwin Booth, tak- 
ing photographs of Bel Air only to find that he 
had lived some distance on at Fountain Green. 
The proprietor of the Kenmore Inn assured us that 
the school children along the way would know, and 
as it had more to do with tradition than education 
they did even stop their ball game by the roadside 
to swing wide a farm gate. We drove in and out 
vnth no one to molest us save several conventional 
calves who bawled to their mothers that some one 
had come to take a picture of them — such is the van- 
ity of the very young. The birthplace is very good 
and the estate most impressive, for the average 
actor boasts no such pretentious beginning. But 
this makes little difference. It is fitting that Foun- 
tain Green is the name of the locality which shel- 
tered the youth who gave to our country an ever 
verdant art. 

We rushed on through a country wisely marked 
at the dangerous turns by a skull and cross bones 
painted on high white fences, and our speed, con- 
trolled at times by these visions of a future state, 
brought us to Havre de Grace for early luncheon. 
We stopped there, for we were loath to quit Mary- 
land, and the inn on the river was so soothing to the 
exterior man that we thought the interior individual 
might take a chance at a bad meal. But our dinner 
was both decorative to the eye and satisfying to that 



THIS IS THE END 

side of us which, having a restricted view of life, 
takes small interest in the beauties of nature unless 
they are well cooked. 

There were fresh green peas and asparagus, and 
each expression of gratification from us was re- 
peated in a loud voice by the handmaiden as soon 
as she got beyond the swinging door into the 
kitchen. " They like the sparrowgrass," she an- 
nounced, " but he don't eat no veal." The other 
guests grew very quiet in the dining room as the re- 
port of our doings continued. " They keep askin' 
about their dog," she shouted. " Take him round to 
the back door, Katie, and feed him till he busts." 
And at the end of the meal: " He ain't got enough 
money an's asked her for some. They come in a 
machine too." 

The Illustrator hastened out to hunt up the 
chauffeur who had taken advantage of the assur- 
ance across the street that here were sold " sand- 
witches." The landlady came in when I was alone 
apologising to me for everything as though we were 
at an old-fashioned country tea party, where, if I 
remember rightly, it was the fashion for the hostess 
to deprecate her table. I recall the heavy effort to 
be enthusiastic and to quiet her pretended alarm, 
and how the wearisome repetition of our repletion 
took away our appetite before we were actually sat- 
isfied. We don't do so much of that nowadays and 

-j-363-<- 



THIS IS THE END 

one finds a casual hostess very much of an 
aperitif. 

The landlady said with a weary sigh that she was 
housecleaning (here I begin working, not " easing " 
you up to your apartment door) and I admitted 
that I had wired " clean if not cleaned " while I 
was far away in Petersburg. She looked at me 
earnestly with her lips pursed up. " Do you think 
she'll do it as well as you? " 

I replied that " she " would probably do it bet- 
ter. And I don't know why " she " shouldn't when 
it is her specialty and not mine. Nor do I see why 
a woman is less housewifely for paying others who 
need the small sum to do what she can ill afford to 
spend time upon. I can write stories and get money 
for them (although you'll probably doubt this) and 
I won't spend hours sewing on buttons when I 
could make enough in that time to employ a mod- 
erate sized Dorcas Society of needy needle-women. 

As for the darning bag the Illustrator says I 
never get it out unless we are expecting an inter- 
viewer. But I defy any reporter to catch me so 
selfishly at work. I'd rather do without satin slip- 
pers which wear out so easily. Yes, and I do do 
without them. The next time you see me wearing 
kid ones at a party remember that a sewing woman 
has a day's work off of each foot — which is confus- 
ing but I know you'll understand. 

-j-364-e- 



THIS IS THE END 

Or will you? Have the previous chapters full of 
meandering thoughts left you opposed to the theory 
that I should keep out of the kitchen. Do you want 
to cry, " Try darning socks! " Believe me I have 
tried. I have tried many things in life and failed. 
After that what is there for us to do but tell of our 
many failures, and if a reader can get any consola- 
tion out of them perhaps we haven't been such fear- 
ful failures after all. 

You see I should be closing this chapter now, but 
I write on hoping that I may improve my style — ■ 
like suddenly learning a trick — so that you may say 
" the end was good " — which can mean two things. 
A last chapter is terrible, for a writer wishes to take 
back every word she has said that is confusing or 
incorrect or displeasing. It is like sending for a 
priest at the close of a wilful life. I wish I didn't 
know when it was to be the last chapter and that I 
could wake up some morning to find that the manu- 
script, now a sturdy and complete child, had walked 
itself down to the publishers. But see how I make 
into " one-night-stands " a run that was swiftly ac- 
complished. If I can just get across the Sus- 
quehanna, over one of the long bridges to which the 
river is addicted, and reach the Delaware state line 
I am sure all Southern languor will leave me, and I 
can roll you by the power of words quickly to the 
Quaker City. 



THIS IS THE END 

One could tell Delaware by the abrupt leaving of 
the perfect road, yet it was a good " home " road — 
I mean by that as " home cooking " is good, 
which is never quite what we pretend it to be. The 
buzzards left us as promptly as they had begun 
way over at the western end of INIarj^land, but Co- 
lonial beauties in architecture were still ours. As 
engaging a church as we saw in the South was that 
of St. James's near Staunton, Delaware. It is so 
curiously built that we hung about the churchyard 
for a long time hoping some one would come along 
to explain its unusual design. But it was off by it- 
self in the country with no service for five days 
ahead, and that would mean almost another book 
if we waited for the history. One may notice that 
it takes little time to relate facts but I find it diffi- 
cult to lead up to them from a long avoidance of 
the truth. 

Between this point and the discovery of the best 
Southern inn on the run through a Northern state 
lay Wilmington, a town of lovely old houses which 
I never saw before, although I can tell all about 
the hotels and the theatres. The strolling player 
of today does very little strolling beyond cover- 
ing the distance between his workshop and his 
bed. 

But such are the benefits of motoring that we 
find the best of a town as often as we do the worst 

-J- 366 4- 



::v) 



..\! 










/-i-i^ifi 







THE TOWER UF HULDKK HALL, J»KL\('i:'l( tX 



THIS IS THE END 

of it, and as a rule under gentler skies than does 
the weary mummer. A number of us experienced 
Wilmington during a hot spell one September, 
however, that made us think affectionately of wad- 
ing through snow drifts to catch early morning 
trains. From my excellent room I could look out 
upon the Delaware River, and I beg you to waste 
no further pity on " Washington Crossing the 
Delaware " when you are confronted by that large 
steel engraving. I did not believe during my torrid 
stay in Wilmington that the Delaware could ever 
freeze over, but if it did George Washington was 
enjoying it. 

The river kept to our right (or we kept to its 
left as the river would say if it were writing this 
book) all the way to Philadelphia showing by its 
industries in ships, munitions, and other methods 
of destruction that it was very much in the mode. 
Before we reached Chester we found as charming 
an ornament as man could make and sit upon a 
little hill to view the stream. It is an inn known 
as " Naamans " after an Indian chief of that dis- 
trict. It is low with thick protecting pillars and 
wide inviting wings. At one end is a block house 
which the Swedes built for protection against the 
Indians in 1638. But the poor Norsemen needed 
more than block houses to withstand the violence of 
Governor Peter Stuyvesant. He drove them out 

-r-367-^- 



THIS IS THE END 

with small cannon balls — one was found absurdly- 
hiding in the crotch of an old tree and now rests 
upon the hall mantelshelf. The block house is used 
for the braiding of the most lovely rugs imaginable, 
and if you see me wearing to the opera this Winter 
a circular effect in dull blues I will pretend that it 
is a coat but it is really one of the rugs purchased 
at Naamans. 

The hostess and I were enthusiastically discuss- 
ing the merits of the rare mahogany in the bedrooms 

when W said that it was too dark to make a 

sketch and so — "Ahem!" That is the male way 
of saying " As I have nothing to do here remaining 
is not important." Once I fed a little monkey and 
when the hand-organ man pulled him away he went 
hopping backwards with his arms stretched out ap- 
pealingly to me. And in that manner I hopped 
away from Naamans, but some day a letter will 
come to Claymont, Delaware, which is the address 
of the inn, bidding them prepare the block house 
and I shall inhabit it for a while, shooting any one 
who asks me " What's for dinner? " or " Where is 
my left patent leather pump? " 

It was a pleasant sign that on the last run of both 
our trips in America we have come across particu- 
larly interesting taverns. They are like little ten- 
drils which hold you to your love of the road, prom- 
ising comfort with charm if you will come back 

-J-368-J- 



THIS IS THE END 

and not forget what the broad highway has to 
offer. 

Upon the outskirts of Philadelphia we plunged 
into domesticity so heavily that it looked as though 
no one on the globe was living in hotels or flats or 
boarding houses. Thousands of neat little homes 
attended us on either side the streets, millions of 
front steps led to rocking chairs on porches equally 
numerous. I immediately became a housekeeper 
and hinted to the Illustrator of a long night run to 
New York. But this was not encouraged and the 
best that I could do was to arrange mentally the 
furniture in these little houses : " The couch must 
be there — the lamp by the window — two bookcases 

on either side of the chimney and " W 

turned to look at me quizzically. " You've stopped 
looking about," he said. It was true. I had 
stopped regarding the road in the arranging of 
furniture. I was nearly " home." 

We did none of the things in Philadelphia that 
I hope you will accomplish. In preference to a 
lecture on foreign travel we went to the theatre — 
a bus man's holiday — to see an indifferently acted 
play. At supper afterwards one of the actresses 
stopped at the table which we were sharing with 
friends. She admitted that they were tired of the 
" road." I listened to this complacently for I knew 
that they would rest for a while, then a longing to 

-i-369H- 



THIS IS THE END 

get back again would come twitching at their 
hearts. They too are of that band of explorers who 
know the wanderlust. 

What haste W felt about reaching New 

York he did not crystallise into speech, but he was 
fairly acrid for an amiable man when I was very 
late ordering down the bags. I had been running 
up and down the most delightful feature of Phila- 
delphia: its little back streets, chasing Mr. Toby. 
He had given up all thought of ever staying more 
than a night in one place and had accommodated 
himself to it, but an extra morning's scrub was a 
little hifalutin, and for the first time in his life he 
ran away, lured on by a few dogs urging him to 
join the union against baths. I would have pur- 
sued him to the world's end, and may the creator 
of all animals soften the heart of the passerby who 
meets the lost dog wearing a muzzle. Catch him 
if only to send for the wagon which carries his kind 
to a more peaceful finish than will be our fortune. 
But don't let him starve behind that mouse trap. 

The parkway which Philadelphia has given the 
traveller of the New York road is the most majestic 
of my experience. Some day we are going to make 
the run from New York just for the pleasure of 
being conducted through lovely paved processes up 
to the heart of Philadelphia. It is quite symbolic, 
however, that we should have passed, upon entering 

-J- 370 -J- 



THIS IS THE END 

the city, the little houses whose prosperity made pos- 
sible the building of these boulevards. jMotor griev- 
ances are not enduring humps. They are ironed 
out by quiet running, and before we had reached 
New Jersey Toby's anxious eyes grew peaceful. 
*' They're all right, everything's all right," said he, 
which I have thought so often that he must have 
borrowed it from me. 

We turned off the road through the wilfulness 
of the motor before we reached Princeton which 
was done, I hope, to atone for other less welcome 
misleadings. It took us along an old canal with 
the drawbridge open while a long string of animals 
pulled so heavy a cargo that I could not believe it 
was only chalk. I was occupied until we discovered 
the far towers of Princeton figuring what they 
could do with all that chalk. The public need it 
— as far as I know — only for school children, un- 
becoming face powder, and grease spots. The pic- 
turesque reward was worth the wrong turn and the 
unusual approach to Princeton was as English as 
a landscape could be and remain New Jersey. A 
line of grey towers commanded green treetops, and 
Mr. Carnegie's lake was as good as the Thames any 
day. 

We lunched at the Princeton Inn, a far cry from 
the noon meal of the day before, or of our outdoor 
spread in the swamps, of the farmhouse in the Vir- 

-h 371 -t- 



THIS IS THE END 

ginia mountains, or Friddle's restaurant in the val- 
ley of the Shenandoah. Yet this dignified eating 
place was no mark of progression beyond the 
further enriching of our experiences. Let it be a 
healing thought to such of us as find the creature 
comforts of life decreasing with the advance of 
years that, in the steady march of time, never for 
one instant is our horizon narrowing. 

I watched some of the older of the University 
men at table — seniors, a little tinged with the seri- 
ousness of life. They had shot above the limit of 
the school boy's mental stature. They were brave 
enough and sure enough to be simple. But, even 
so, I thought of the long road ahead of them and 
their discoveries along the way. A young man 
wrote me last year and spoke of his mental state 
a few months previous. " I was in transit then," 
he wrote, " now my principles and my philosophy 
are established. I see big and fine things ahead. 
It's a great relief. I shall have no more mental 
roving." 

Ah, poor young man! Even now he may have 
found that he must take out his map of life and alter 
his pleasing itinerary. And he will travel far on his 
mental rovings nor cease until the map has blown 
from his withered hands by a wind too rude. We 
are in transit from the moment we come crying into 
the world until such time as we quietly close our 

-j-372-i- 



THIS IS THE END 

eyes upon it. And that is another reason we feel 
the highroad to be as much our home when we are 
restless as are the enfolding walls when tranquillity 
is ours. 

We crossed to Staten Island from Perth Amboy 
and from there on the Metropolitan aura made it- 
self felt by a sort of nimbus of New York trucks 
and town cars all around us. But the wrappings of 
the country did not leave my spirit as it has often 
done before. I wondered if I had been inocu- 
lated with the brown earth, or had my sympathies 
made me one with it — we were near to the ground 
in the Old Dominion. And then in the haziest fash- 
ion, even as we were making for the ferry amidst 
the great drays, there came to me the memory of 
the Greek story of the deluge. Faintly I remem- 
bered Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha (who were 
the Mr. and Mrs. Noah of mythology) praying be- 
fort the altar for a way of quickly renewing the 
race. The oracle spoke and bade them cast behind 
them the bones of their mother. This was sacrilege 
to a Greek, but Deucalion found an interpretation 
for the command. It was not the human mother — 
which would be desecration — but the earth which, 
as Deucalion said, " is the great parent of all. The 
stones are her bones ; these we may cast behind us." 
So they picked up the rocks along the way and as 
they walked they cast them over their shoulders. 

-^ 373 -f- 



THIS IS THE END 

" The stones began to grow soft, and assume shape. 
By degrees they put on a rude resemblance to the 
human form, like a block half finished in the hands 
of the sculptor. The moisture that was about them 
became flesh; the stony part bone; the veins re- 
mained veins, only changing their use. Those 
thrown by the hand of the man became men, and 
those by the woman became women." 

So you see it would be very stupid in us not to 
love the road, for if you are a good Greek you will 
believe that you are not only on it but of it. And 
that is the last of the metaphor for this is the end 
of the book. 

When we reached our apartment Toby was 
amazed over our complete dismounting of the bag- 
gage. *' Is this our home? " he asked. 

" Until the road calls again," we answered. 



374 



qA^"^ 



